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CHURCH   UNITY 


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CHURCH  UNITY 

jfttoe  Lectures 

DELIVERED    IN    THE    UNION    THEOLOGICAL 

SEMINARY,  NEW  YORK,  DURING 

THE    WINTER  OF   1896 


BY 

CHARLES  W.  SHIELDS,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
E.  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS,  LL.D. 
JOHN   F.  HURST,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
HENRY   C.  POTTER,  D.D.,  LL.D. 
AMORY   H.  BRADFORD,  D.D. 


% 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1896 


Copyright,  1S96, 
By  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


©fotasitg  ]$tm: 

John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


THROUGH  the  kind  provision  of  a 
Director  of  the  Union  Theological 
Seminary,  five  leading  divines,  representing 
five  great  evangelical  churches,  lectured 
in  the  Union  Theological  Seminary,  during 
the  winter  of  1896,  on  the  several  topics 
of  Church  Unity  assigned  them.  These 
lectures  were  so  able,  so  timely,  and  so 
valuable,  that  it  was  deemed  wise  to  publish 
them.  They  are  printed  just  as  delivered, 
with  the  exception  of  slight  corrections 
and  additions.  The  order  was  changed  in 
a  single  instance,  that  the  themes  might  be 
printed  in  a  better  chronological  series. 
The  lecturers  were  entirely  free  to  express 
their  own  opinions  upon  the  topics  assigned 
them.     Each  author  is  exclusively  respon- 


vi  PREFACE 

sible  for  his  own  lecture.  The  concord  of 
opinion  of  these  five  representative  divines 
with  regard  to  Church  Unity  is  quite  remark- 
able. This  concord  expresses  the  spirit 
and  attitude  of  the  Union  Theological 
Seminary. 


CONTENTS 


i 

Page 
The    General    Principles    of    CnuRcn 

Unity 3 

By  the  Rev.  Charles  W.  Shields,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
Professor  in  the  College  of  New  Jersey,  Prince- 
ton, New  Jersey. 

II 
TnE  Sin  of  Schism 69 

By  the  Rev.  E.  Benjamin  Andrews,  LL.D., 
President  of  Brown  University,  Providence, 
Rhode  Island. 

Ill 

The  Irenic  Movements  since  the  Ref- 
ormation   107 

By  the  Rev.  John  F.  Hurst,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Bishop 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  Washing- 
ton, D.C 


Viii  CONTENTS 

IV 

Page 

The  Ciiicago-Lambetii  Articles     .     .     .     157 

By  the  Right  Rev.  Henry  C.  Potter,  D.D., 
L.L.D.,  Bishop  of  New  York. 

V 

The   Unity  of   tiie   Spirit  —  a   World- 
wide Necessity 199 

By  the  Rev.  Amory  II.  Bradford,  D.D.,  Pas- 
tor of  Congregational  Church,  Montclair,  New 
Jersey. 


THE   GENERAL   PRINCIPLES   OF 
CHURCH   UNITY 

Br  the  Rrcv.  CHARLES  W.  SHIELDS,  D.D.,LL.D. 

Professor  in  the  College  of  New  Jersey, 
Princeton,  New  Jersey 


THE    GENERAL    PRINCIPLES    OF 
CHURCH   UNITY 

THE  cause  of  Church  Unity  still  lives. 
Some  of  our  denominational  jour- 
nals may  seem  to  have  been  burying  it 
with  military  honors,  —  But  burying  it 
only  in  enigy.  It  rises  again  before  us, 
not  as  a  spectre  from  the  grave,  but  as 
the  queen  of  the  heavenly  graces,  with  a 
train  of  reverend  and  learned  advocates. 
It  has  long  had  its  enthusiastic  friends 
who  were  discreetly  praised  as  amiable 
visionaries ;  now,  apparently,  it  has  some 
alarmed  foes,  who  have  betrayed  no  lan- 
guid interest  in  the  "  iridescent  dream- 
ers." And  so  it  takes  its  place  among 
the  living  issues  of  the  day. 

THE   CHURCH   UNITY    MOVEMENT 

Is  any  issue  more  living  ?  He  must  be 
blind  indeed  who  does  not  see  that  the 
movement   for   church   unity  has   become 


4  CIIURCIl   UNITY 

the  characteristic  movement  of  modern 
Christendom.  Other  questions,  matters 
of  doctrine  or  policy,  may  agitate  certain 
portions  of  the  Church  here  and  there; 
but  this  is  the  one  question  which  moves 
the  whole  Church  everywhere,  in  both 
hemispheres.  There  is  no  corner  of  the 
Christian  world,  no  outpost  of  Christian 
missions,  to  which  it  has  not  penetrated ; 
and  no  grade  of  the  Christian  ministry, 
from  the  Pope  himself  down  to  the  hum- 
blest evangelist,  that  has  not  voiced  its 
claims.  The  Roman  Church  has  been 
proposing  terms  of  unity  to  the  Greek 
Church,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  An- 
glican Church  on  the  other;  the  Angli- 
can Church  has  been  proposing  terms  to 
the  other  reformed  churches;  and  all 
churches  in  the  United  States  have  been 
proposing  terms  to  one  another.  Not  only 
have  kindred  churches,  long  estranged, 
been  reuniting,  —  Congregational  with 
Congregational,  Presbyterian  with  Presby- 
terian, Episcopal  with  Episcopal ;  not  only 
have  groups  of  such  churches  been  forming 
international  alliances,  —  Pan-Anglican, 
Pan-Presbyterian,  Pan-Congregationalist, 
Pan-Methodist;   but  ready   champions   of 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES  5 

such  groups  of  churches,  in  truly  ecu- 
menical conferences,  as  at  Cologne,  Bonn, 
and  Griinwald,  have  been  approaching  the 
problem  of  unity  from  the  most  diverse 
positions.  Meanwhile,  too,  the  great 
Christian  heart  of  the  age  has  been  pray- 
ing and  hoping,  as  never  before,  that 
Christ's  own  prayer  for  oneness  might  be 
fulfilled. 

EXPLANATIONS  OF  THE  MOVEMENT 

A  movement  so  universal  and  deep- 
seated  as  this  cannot  be  regarded  as  any 
mere  accidental  outburst  or  religious  fash- 
ion of  the  time.  The  student  of  church 
history  sees  in  it  only  an  age-spirit  which 
has  been  born  of  the  ages.  It  appears  to 
him  in  this  light  from  various  points  of 
view.  According  to  one  view,  ingenious 
but  fanciful,  the  trend  toward  unity  is  but 
the  issue  of  great  Christian  tendencies 
which  from  the  first  were  typified  by  the 
three  chief  apostles  as  their  representa- 
tives. The  legal  spirit  of  Peter  and  the 
evangelical  spirit  of  Paul  are  to  be  har- 
monized by  the  loving  spirit  of  John.  As 
in  the  early  Church  the  Petrine  type  of 
Jewish   Christianity  was   opposed  by  the 


6  CUURCH  UNITY 

Pauline  type  of  Gentile  Christianity,  so 
in  the  later  Church  Catholicism  has  fol- 
lowed St.  Peter  until  it  denied  his  Lord 
in  the  papacy ;  while  Protestantism,  like 
St.  Paul,  has  blamed  and  withstood  it 
until  freedom  has  become  license.  And 
now  in  the  modern  Church,  Protestantism 
and  Catholicism  are  to  be  reconciled  under 
the  gentle  spirit  of  St.  John,  the  beloved 
apostle,  still  tarrying  till  his  Lord  shall 
come.  The  reunited  Church,  like  the 
bride  in  the  Apocalypse,  will  then  be  pre- 
pared and  adorned  for  her  husband. 

According  to  another  and  profounder 
view,  the  problem  of  church  unity  has 
simply  come  last  in  the  logical  evolution 
of  Christian  doctrine.  To  each  age  of 
Christianity  has  been  given  its  own  pro- 
blems, to  be  solved  and  then  left  as  pre- 
mises to  succeeding  ages.  The  age  of  the 
Greek  fathers  was  occupied  with  the  prob- 
lems of  theology,  strictly  so  called,  and 
settled  for  all  time  the  doctrines  of  the 
trinity,  creation  and  incarnation.  The 
next  following  age  of  the  Latin  fathers 
was  devoted  to  the  problems  of  anthropol- 
ogy, and  denned  the  doctrines  of  original 
sin,   electing  grace,  regeneration.      Then 


GENERAL  riUNCirLES  7 

came  the  age  of  the  reformers,  with  the 
problems  of  soteriology,  and  new  dog- 
matic definitions  of  the  atonement,  justi- 
fication, and  sanctification.  At  last  we 
have  reached  an  age  of  irenic  thought, 
which  must  take  up  the  problems  of 
ecclesiology  and  discuss  the  doctrines  of 
the  Church,  the  ministry,  and  the  sacra- 
ments. In  the  settlement  of  such  ques- 
tions the  unity  of  the  Church,  as  based 
upon  a  doctrinal  consensus  of  the  Christ- 
ian ages,  would  appear  as  that  last  pro- 
blem of  problems,  by  the  solution  of 
which  the  circle  of  Christian  doctrine  is 
to  be  completed. 

According  to  another   and  more   philo- 
sophical view,  the  present  impulse  to  church 
unity  is  but  a  natural  and  healthy  reaction 
from  former  impulses  to  church  division. 
It  illustrates  that  great  historic  law  of  re-/ 
currences,    by  which    whole    generations: 
after  having  been  driven  toward   one  ex-\ 
treme  will  rebound  toward  the  other,  until 
they  settle  down  to  a  just  medium.     For 
some  centuries  past  the  divisive  impulse 
has    been    working    with    frightful     mo- 
mentum.    In  the  ninth  century  the  West- 
ern Church  broke  away  from  the  Eastern 


8  CHURCII   UNITY 

Church.  In  the  sixteenth  century  the  re- 
formed Churches  broke  away  from  the 
Roman  church;  and  for  three  centuries 
since  then  they  have  gone  on  reforming 
the  Reformation,  protesting  against  Pro- 
testantism, purifying  Puritanism,  dissent- 
ing from  dissent,  dividing,  redivicling  and 
sub-dividing  down  to  the  inorganic  dust 
of  individuality  itself.  The  absurd  result 
has  been  reached  that  every  Christian  man 
may  do  without  the  Church,  or  any  chance 
meeting  of  Christian  men  may  manufac- 
ture the  Church  anew,  in  ignorance  of  all 
the  Christian  centuries  before  them  and 
in  contempt  of  all  Christendom  around 
them.  At  length,  however,  from  these 
wild  extremes  the  inevitable  reaction  has 
set  in  during  the  present  century,  at  first 
faint  and  feeble  but  gathering  strength 
and  volume  in  its  course.  The  general 
recoil  of  modern  towards  primitive  Chris- 
tianity has  been  followed  by  that  of  Pro- 
testantism toward  Catholicity,  Puritanism 
towards  Ecclesiasticism,  dissent  towards 
consent.  American  Christianity,  hitherto 
so  unhistoric,  is  beginning  to  see  that 
something  is  due  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
Christian  a^es  and  the  consent  of  Chris- 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES  \3 

tian  nations.  As  different  thinkers  vari- 
ously express  it,  "the  centrifugal  age  of 
Christianity  is  closed ;  The  centripetal  ac- 
tion has  begun."  1  "  The  age  of  division 
is  over:  that  of  reunion  is  coming  on." 
Thus  viewed,  the  movement  for  church 
unity  is  but  a  recoil  from  the  sectarian 
results  of  the  Reformation  under  the  great 
historic  law  of  action  and  reaction,  cause 
and  effect. 

Still  another  and  the  most  practical  view 
is,  that  the  unification  of  the  Church  has 
become  necessary  by  its  critical  position  in 
modern  civilization.  Christianity  has  ever 
been  more  or  less  involved  in  the  civiliza- 
tion which  has  accompanied  it  as  part  of 
its  own  historic  development.  In  the 
primitive  age  it  encountered  a  Pagan  civili- 
zation, whose  art,  philosophy,  and  politic 
were  hostile  to  its  lofty  claims.  In  the 
middle  ages,  it  had  Christianized  and  con- 
quered this  pagan  civilization,  rendering 
its  philosophy  a  handmaid  to  divinity, 
resolving  its  art  into  a  stately  ritual,  and 
subjecting  even  the  State  to  the  Church. 
But  now,  in  the  present  reforming  age,  it 
finds   itself   divorced,  falsely   and   tempo- 

1  Rev.  Prof.  George  P.  Fisher,  DD. 


10  CHURCH  UNITY 

rarily,  from  the  very  civilization  to  which 
it  has  itself  given  birth ;  surrounded  by  a 
sceptical  philosophy,  a  licentious  art,  and 
a  politic  wholly  of  the  earth  earthy.  Not 
only  thus  surrounded  by  agnosticism,  im- 
morality, anarchism;  but  internally  rent 
and  torn  with  sectarianism,  rationalism, 
formalism.  Never  before  was  there  such 
need  of  an  organic  consolidation  of  the 
conservative  forces  of  Chistianity.  Never 
before  was  there  such  need  of  an  organic 
compact  of  its  aggressive  forces.  Never 
before  was  there  such  need  of  presenting  a 
united  Church  to  heathenism  abroad  and 
to  irreligion  at  home.  In  this  light  unity 
appears  simply  indispensable  to  the  Church 
to  enable  it  to  accomplish  its  final  earthly 
mission  as  a  teacher,  conservator,  and  re- 
generator of  human  society. 

These  are  some  explanations  of  the  unity 
movement.      There   is    truth   in   each   of 
them.     All  of  them  may  be  combined  con- 
sistently.    We  may  view  the  movement  as  \ 
at  once  a  reconciliation  of  Christian  tern-  \ 
peraments,  a  completion  of  Christian  doc-  \ 
trine,  a  reaction  from  the  sectarian  results    | 
of   the   Reformation,   and   a   necessity   of 
Chistian  civilization;  or  we  may  attempt 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  11 

no  explanation,  and  accept  it  simply  as  an 
inscrutable  Providence, — the  fact  remains, 
that   it  is   the   supreme   question  of   our 

Christian  epoch. 

Before  discussing  (he  general  principles 
of  Church  unity,  we  need  to  define  the 
sense  in  which  the  words  are  to  be  used. 
It  is  not  now  proposed  to  speak  of  the 
Church  as  invisible  and  unorganized ;  nor 
of  a  unity  that  is  sentimental  and  ideal ; 
but  of  the  visible  organized  Church  and  of 
a  visible  organic  unity.  Never,  indeed, 
should  we  forget  or  depreciate  that  glorious 
invisible  Church  or  communion  of  saints 
which  includes  all  true  believers  in  Christ 
that  are,  or  have  been,  or  shall  be  united 
to  Him,  whether  in  heaven  or  upon  earth. 
Much  less  may  we  set  forth  as  opposed  or 
superior  to  the  one  invisible  Church  that 
other  visible  Church  which  is  now  so 
divided,  distracted,  and  even  dismembered. 
Rather  must  we  discern  a  fixed  normal 
relation  of  the  one  to  the  other,  and  ever 
aim,  as  far  as  in  us  lies,  to  make  the  visible 
Church  a  true  expression  of  the  invisible 
Church,  in  its  unity  as  well  as  in  its  other 
divine  qualities.  This  view  of  church 
unity  as  organic  may  be  vindicated  on 
several  grounds. 


12  CHURCH  UNITY 

ORGANIC  UNITY  INTENDED  BY  OUR  LORD 

In  the  first  place,  organic  unity  was  con- 
templated by  our  Lord  himself  as  head  of 
the  Church.  Although  he  was  pre-emi- 
nently a  teacher,  he  was  also  an  organizer. 
He  instituted  a  church  as  well  as  pro- 
claimed a  gospel.  And  he  gave  to  that 
church  apostles,  sacraments,  scriptures, 
doctrines,  all  of  which  are  strictly  ecclesi- 
astical elements,  appertaining  only  to  a 
Church  visible.  As  far  as  was  practicable 
during  his  own  lifetime,  he  thus  organized 
his  spiritual  kingdom ;  and  after  ascending 
into  heaven  he  completed  the  organization, 
by  conferring  upon  it  apostles,  prophets, 
evangelists,  pastors,  and  doctors,  for  the 
edifying  of  his  body  in  the  unity  of  his 
faith  and  of  his  knowledge.  This  was  the 
one  visible  Church  as  organized  by  Christ 
himself ;  and  it  is  inconceivable,  that  he 
ever  intended  it  should  he  broken  into 
jarring  sects,  calling  themselves  His 
Church,  excommunicating  one  another, 
denying  each  other's  ministry  and  sacra- 
ments and  having  no  more  inter-communion 
than  the  Jews  and  Samaritans.  To  imagine 
Him,  in  his  last  great  intercession  on  the 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES  13 

night  of  his  betrayal,  praying  for  a  mere 
invisible  unity  as  consistent  with  visible 
schism  and  conflict,  would  make  that 
solemn  utterance  either  a  truism  or  an  al>- 
surdity.  Most  distinctly  He  prayed,  not 
only  that  the  oneness  of  all  believers  might 
be  as  essential  as  that  between  the  Father 
and  himself,  but  that  it  might  be  mani- 
fested as  demonstrative  proof  of  his  earthly 
mission, —  "that  the  world  may  know 
that  thou  hast  sent  me."  And  not  until 
all  sectarianism  has  disappeared  from  His 
visible  organized  Church  wrill  the  prayer 
be  fulfilled. 

ORGANIC    UNITY    TAUGHT    BY  THE 
APOSTLES 

In  the  second  place,  organic  unity  was 
also  inculcated  by  the  apostles  as  founders 
of  the  Church.  By  their  official  acts  they 
proceeded  to  give  it  the  ecclesiastical 
equipment  of  ministry,  sacrament,  scrip- 
ture, and  doctrine,  and  in  their  Epistles 
they  ever  rebuked  divisions  as  schisms  and 
magnified  organic  unity  as  essential  in  the 
visible  Church  of  Christ.  Ecclesiastical 
diversities,  much  less  extreme  than  those 
now  known  as  Congregationalist,  Presby- 


14  CHURCH  UNITY 

terian,  and  Episcopalian,  were  characterized 
as  the  wildest  hallucination,  a  mere  deli- 
rious dream  of  the  members  of  a  diseased 
body  saying  one  to  another,  "I  have  no 
need  of  thee."  Doctrinal  distinctions, 
made  by  teachers  much  less  known  than 
Luther,  Calvin,  or  Wesley,  met  with  the 
stern  rebuke,  "  Is  Christ  divided  ?  Were 
ye  baptised  into  the  name  of  Paul?" 
Ritual  usages,  much  more  menacing  than 
those  which  now  separate  Baptist  and 
Pedobaptist,  Evangelist  and  Sacerdotalist, 
were  settled  by  the  apostles  and  elders  in 
the  first  Council  of  Jerusalem  without  the 
unchristian  results  of  schism  and  sectari- 
anism. And  this  organic  unity  of  the 
Apostolic  Church  was  maintained  unbroken 
for  centuries  afterwards,  —  at  least  until 
the  Council  of  Nice. 

ORGANIC   UNITY  MAINTAINED  BY  THE 
REFORMERS 

In  the  third  place,  this  organic  unity  was 
never  repudiated  by  the  Protestants  or 
Reformers  of  later  time.  As  those  words 
imply,  had  it  been  possible,  they  would 
have  remained  in  the  Roman  Church, 
simply  protesting   against  its   errors   and 


GENERAL  rill NCI PL EB  15 

reforming  its  abuses.  They  had  no 
thought  of  destroying  Catholic  unity. 
Luther  distinguished  between  Popery  and 
that  true  ancient  Roman  Church  of  the 
early  fathers,  from  which  he  never  con- 
sidered himself  separated.  MelanchthoD 
even  injured  his  fame  by  his  efforts  to 
retain  Lutheranism  under  the  papacy  and 
in  harmony  with  Calvinism.  Calvin  not 
only  claimed  agreement  with  the  true 
ancient  Church  of  Cluysostom  and  Basil, 
of  Cyprian,  Ambrose,  and  Augustine  ;  but 
formulated  a  consensus  of  the  reformed 
churches ;  and  when  Archbishop  Cranmer 
proposed  a  general  council  for  defining 
the  principles  of  Church  unity,  declared  he 
would  have  crossed  ten  seas  rather  than 
miss  that  Lambeth  Conference.  Moreover, 
during  the  first  century  after  the  Reforma- 
tion all  the  reformed  churches,  including 
the  Church  of  England,  sat  together  in  the 
same  synods,  interchanged  pulpits  and  pro- 
fessors' chairs,  and  recognized  the  validity 
of  each  others'  ministry  and  sacraments. 
It  would  seem  inconsistent  with  historic 
truth  and  good  scholarship  for  their  Ameri- 
can descendants  now  to  call  any  of  these 
branches  of  the  Catholic  Church  "  sects  "  or 


16  CHURCH    UNITY 

"schisms,"  however  fitly  the  terms  may  be 
applied  to  some  Christian  bodies  of  later 
date.  In  law  and  courtesy  they  are  en- 
titled "  churches,' '  as  in  the  preface  of  the 
Prayer-book ;  and  we  shall  never  get  before 
us  all  the  data  of  the  Church  unity  problem 
until  we  have  studied  afresh  the  organic 
connection  of  the  Evangelical  Lutheran 
Church,  the  Reformed  Dutch  and  German 
Church,  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church, 
and  the  Presbyterian  Church,  with  the 
whole  visible  Catholic  Church  of  Clnist 
and  his  apostles. 

OEGANIC   UXITY  ATTAINABLE 

In  the  fourth  place,  such  organic  unity  is 
the  only  kind  of  Church  unity  which  is  prac- 
ticable or  directly  attainable  by  our  efforts. 
The  invisible  Church  unity,  of  winch  we 
have  spoken,  is  a  divinely  constituted  rela- 
tionship of  believers  in  Christ,  which  we 
can  neither  create  nor  destroy,  but  only 
express  and  maintain.  Seen  by  the  eye  of 
God  alone,  but  for  the  visible  Church  such 
unity  would  be  to  us  invisible  indeed.  In 
this  world,  at  least,  there  could  be  no  com- 
munion of  saints  without  ecclesiastical 
organization.      The    unity    of    the    spirit 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  17 

would  be  a  mere  sentiment  or  notion,  if 
even  conceivable.  It  is  in  the  sphere  of 
organic  unity  that  our  duty  and  privilege 
lie.  And  there  we  may  attempt  little  or 
much.  Indeed,  we  shall  attempt  nothing 
at  all  if  we  simply  accept  the  present 
condition  of  the  visible  Church  as  normal, 
necessary,  and  perpetual.  We  shall  only 
continue  to  exhibit  the  mystical  body  of 
Christ  to  the  world  as  seemingly  mutilated 
or  deliriously  dismembered.  Nor  shall  we 
attempt  very  much  more,  if  we  are  content 
to  give  the  invisible  unity,  our  common 
Christian  oneness,  merely  some  faint  and 
transient  expression,  as  in  united  missions, 
united  charities,  evangelical  alliances,  and 
denominational  leagues  and  federations  for 
social,  civic,  and  national  reform.  Too 
much  cannot  be  said  in  praise  of  such 
Christian  associations,  when  viewed  as  to 
their  own  beneficent  aims  and  results. 
But  after  all  that  may  be  said,  it  still  re- 
mains to  be  said,  it  is  not  their  distinctive 
mission  to  promote  church  unity.  They 
may  even  obscure  and  thwart  such  unity, 
if  put  in  place  of  Scripture  ideals  and  pre- 
cepts and  allowed  to  exhaust  the  Christian 
instinct  and  effort  toward  oneness. 
2 


18  CHURCIl   UNITY 

Speaking  now  simply  to  the  point,  I 
have  little  faith  in  any  occasional  schemes 
or  forms  of  Christian  union  which  do  not 
both  aim  and  tend  to  become  organic,  ec- 
clesiastical, historic,  apostolical,  and  scrip- 
tural. Nor  do  I  find  myself  turned  from 
this  view  by  the  popular  objections  which 
we  hear  on  all  sides :  "  Denominational- 
ism  is  itself  a  great  blessing ;  "  "  Chris- 
tians will  have  to  become  much  better 
than  they  are  now ;  "  "  Church  unity  is 
a  thing  of  the  millennium."  On  the  con- 
trary, as  I  have  tried  to  show  on  former 
occasions,  all  that  is  good  in  denomina- 
tionalism  would  be  consistent  with  a  true 
church  unity,  and  without  it  simply  tends 
to  sectarianism.  With  all  their  faults,  the 
Christians  of  our  day,  as  Christians  go  in 
this  evil  world,  are  no  worse  than  those 
who  have  gone  before  us  or  are  likely  to 
come  after  us.  Nor  have  we  a  right  to 
devolve  our  duty  upon  an  unknown  pos- 
terity in  the  millennium,  whenever  that 
may  come.  The  true  chasers  of  the  rain- 
bow are  those  strict  denominationalists 
who  would  paint  upon  the  dark  cloud  of 
our  unhappy  divisions  the  "iridescent 
dream"  of  some  ideal  church  of  the  fu- 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  19 

ture,  which  is  so  remote  and  vague  that 
we  can  never  reach  it  until  we  have  all 
become  transfigured  into  saints  and  angels. 
If  we  will  only  begin  with  Christians  as 
they  are  and  churches  and  denominations 
as  we  find  them,  and  inquire  how  to  ren- 
der them  one  united  Church,  we  shall  at 
least  be  dealing  with  the  facts  of  the  sit- 
uation. 

It  follows  now  from  these  definitions 
that  the  principles  of  church  unity  must 
consist  of  fixed  ecclesiastical  tenets  and 
institutes  rather  than  mere  abstract  pro- 
positions, sentimental  professions,  or  occa- 
sional co-operations.  As  yet,  the  only 
scheme  of  such  principles  which  has  en- 
tered the  field  and  still  keeps  the  field,  is 
known  as  the  Quadrilateral,  or  Four  Lam- 
beth Principles.  A  word  is  needed  as  to 
its  history. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  QUADRILATERAL 

To  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  be- 
longs the  honor  —  an  honor  which  can 
never  be  taken  away  from  her  —  of  hav- 
ing first  enunciated  in  our  day  any  general 
principles  of  church  unity.  Perhaps  it 
was  but  natural  and  right  that  the  rally- 


20  CHURCH  UNITY 

ing  call  should  come  from  a  denomination 
so  churchly  in  its  aim  and  spirit  and  so 
fitted  by  its  historic  antecedents  to  lead 
the  other  American  denominations  to- 
ward Catholicity.  Certain  it  is  that 
within  this  communion,  almost  from  its 
origin,  the  question  has  been  under  lively 
discussion.  The  patriarchal  Bishop  White, 
after  the  Revolution,  not  only  gave  the 
Episcopalian  body  a  Presbyterian  consti- 
tution of  the  vertebrate  type,  but  also 
favored  organic  connection  with  the  Mo- 
ravian, Methodist,  and  Lutheran  commun- 
ions. The  prophetical  Bishop  Seabury,  at 
the  same  time,  though  he  founded  a  differ- 
ent school  of  churchmanship,  named  as 
the  four  fixed  marks  of  the  Church,  — 
government,  sacrament,  faith,  and  doctrine, 
which  are  very  suggestive  of  the  Lam- 
beth postulates.1  But  it  was  reserved 
for  the  saintly  and  beloved  Muhlenberg, 
combining  both  schools  in  himself  as  "an 
Evangelical  Catholic,'*  to  give  the  whole 
movement  voice  and  potency.  In  the 
famous  Memorial  of  1853,  composed  by 
him  and    addressed   to    the   bishops,   the 

1  History  of  the  Prot.  Episc.  Church,  by  Archdeacon 
Charles  C.  Tiffany,  DD.,  p.  557,  562. 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  21 

query  was  raised,  whether  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church,  with  only  her  present 
canonical  means  and  appliances,  her  fixed 
and  invariable  modes  of  worship,  and  her 
traditional  customs  and  usages,  is  compe- 
tent to  the  work  of  preaching  and  dispens- 
ing the  gospel  to  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men  in  this  land  and  in  this  age :  and 
whether  her  mission  might  not  be  more 
fully  accomplished  by  the  extension  of 
Episcopal  ordination  to  "  men  in  other 
Christian  bodies,  who  would  gladly  receive 
it  could  they  obtain  it  without  that  entire 
surrender  of  all  the  liberty  in  public  wor- 
sliip  to  which  they  have  been  accustomed, 
—  men  who  are  sound  in  the  faith  and 
having  the  gift  of  preachers  and  pastors 
would  be  able  ministers  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament." It  was  further  urged  by  the 
Memorialists,  that  to  the  Catholic  episco- 
pate belongs  the  high  privilege  of  becom- 
ing the  central  bond  of  church  unity  in 
Protestant  Christendom,  and  that  it  may 
be  the  special  work  of  an  American  epis- 
copate to  attempt  some  "  broader  and  more 
comprehensive  ecclesiastical  system,  sur- 
rounding and  including  the  Protestant 
Episcopal   Church  as   it  is   now,   leaving 


22  chub  en  cxity 

that  church,  untouched,  identical  with 
that  church  in  all  its  great  principles,  yet 
providing  for  as  much  freedom  in  opinion, 
discipline,  and  worship  as  is  compatible 
with  the  essential  faith  and  order  of  the 
Gospel."  This  noble  project  was  so  novel 
and  startlin£  at  that  time,  fortv  vears  a^o, 
that  it  does  not  seem  even  to  have  been 
fully  comprehended.  Its  temporary  fail- 
ure was  followed,  as  might  have  been 
foreseen,  by  the  rise  of  the  ritualistic 
party  and  the  secession  of  the  Reformed 
Episcopal  Church.  But  its  good  effects 
have  remained  in  the  appointment  of  a 
permanent  Episcopal  Commission  on 
Church  Unity,  in  a  revision  of  the  Prayer- 
Book,  enriching  it  and  making  it  more 
flexible,  and  in  the  Declaration  concern- 
ing Unity  by  the  General  Convention  of 
1886,  at  Chicago. 

THE  CHICAGO  ARTICLES   OF   TNITY 

The  Chicago  Declaration  was  issued  in 
response  to  a  memorial  signed  by  more 
than  eleven  hundred  clergymen,  including 
thirty-two  bishops,  and  by  over  three  thou- 
sand laymen.  It  is  understood  to  have 
been  elaborated  in  purport  and  language 


GESERAL  PRINCIPLES  23 

by    Bishop    Littlejohn,    of    Long   Island, 
chairman  of   the    Episcopal   Commission.1 

In   the   preamble,    after    referring   to   the 
Muhlenberg    Memorial,    the    bishops    de- 
clared:   (1)   their   earnest   desire  that  the 
Saviour's  prayer  for  unity  may  be  speedily 
fulfilled;   (2)  their  belief  that  all  duly  bap- 
tised  persons   are   members   of   the   Holy 
Catholic    Church;    (3)   their   readiness   to 
forego  all  things  of  mere  human  ordering 
as  to  modes  of  worship  and  discipline  or 
traditional  customs ;  and  (4)  their  disavowal 
of  any  wish  to  absorb  other  Christian  com- 
munions  into  their  own  church,  but  only 
co-operate  with  such  communions  on  the  \ 
basis  of  a  common  faith  and  order,  to  dis-  ; 
countenance  schism  and  heal  the  wonndsin 
the  body  of  Christ     At  ffifi  same  Sme,  the 
^bishops  affirmTffiS  the  unity  sought  can 
only  be  obtained  by  a  return  of  all  Chris- 
tian communions  to  its  first  principles  as 
exemplified  by  the    primitive,  undivided 

i  The  Rev.  Dr.  Huntington,  of  Grace  Church,  in  his 
•Ewy  towards  Unity,"  also  foreshadowed  some  of  its 
essential  statements,  and  gave  to  the  four  articles  the 
name  of  "Quadrilateral."  by  which  thev  have  become 
known  "These  four  points,  like  the  four  famous  for- 
tresses of  Lombards,  make  the  '  Quadrilateral '  of  pure 
Anglicanism."  —  p.  157. 


24  CHURCH   UNITY 

Church,  and  entrusted  as  a  sacred  deposit 
of  faith  and  order  by  Christ  and  his  apos- 
tles to  the  Church  through  all  time,  and 
therefore  as  incapable  of  compromise  or 
surrender  by  those  who  have  been  ordained 
to  be  its  stewards  and  trustees  for  the  com- 
mon and  equal  benefit  of  all  men.  And 
then  the  bishops  set  forth  four  such  prin- 
ciples of  church  unity. 

First.  The  Holy  Scriptures,  as  the 
revealed  word  of  God. 

Second.  The  Nicene  Creed,  as  the  es- 
sential faith. 

Third.  The  two  Sacraments,  as  insti- 
tuted by  Christ. 

Fourth.  The  Historic  Episcopate,  as 
locally  adapted  to  different  Christian 
nations. 

The  bishops  concluded  with  an  expres- 
sion of  their  readiness  for  brotherly  con- 
ference with  any  Christian  bodies  seeking 
the  restoration  of  the  organic  unity  of  the 
Church  with  a  view  to  the  earnest  study  of 
the  conditions  under  which  so  priceless  a 
blessing  might  happily  be  brought  to  pass. 
This  is  substantially  the  whole  purport  of 
the  Chicago  Declaration. 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES  25 


THE   LAMBETH   ARTICLES    OF   UNITY 

The  next  stage  in  the  history  is  to  be 
traced  in  the  proceedings  of  the  last  Pan- 
Anglican  Conference,  convened  by  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  at  Lambeth 
Palace  in  1888.  It  appears  that  for  more 
than  thirty  years  a  movement  like  that  on 
this  side  of  the  ocean  had  been  gaining 
strength  and  clearness  in  the  convocations 
both  of  Canterbury  and  York,  as  well  as  in 
the  colonial  synods  of  Canada  and  Aus- 
tralia ;  and  by  the  time  it  came  before  the 
assembled  bishops  it  had  pervaded  the 
whole  Anglican  communion  throughout 
the  world.  The  result  of  their  delibera- 
tions was  the  adoption  of  the  four  American 
articles  with  two  slight  amendments.  In 
the  first  article  the  Holy  Scriptures  are 
not  characterized  simply  "as  the  revealed 
Word  of  God,"  but  more  precisely  "as 
containing  all  things  necessary  to  salvation 
and  as  being  the  rule  and  ultimate  standard 
of  faith."  In  the  second  article  "the 
Apostles'  Creed,  as  the  baptismal  symbol," 
was  added  to  "the  Mcene  Creed,  as  the 
sufficient  statement  of  the  Christian  faith." 
There    were,    however,    some    significant 


26  CnURCII   UNITY 

changes  in  the  preamble  and  supplement 
of  the  American  Declaration.  The  entire 
preamble  was  omitted.  Consequently,  the 
Four  Principles  are  no  longer  offered  to 
other  communions  "  as  inherent  parts  of  a 
sacred  deposit  of  faith  and  order  incapable 
of  compromise  or  surrender  by  those  who 
have  been  ordained  to  be  its  stewards  and 
trustees."  To  some  persons  this  may  seem 
a  very  important  omission.  For  one,  I  do 
not  think  much  would  be  gained  or  lost  to 
either  party  by  retaining  it.  But  inas- 
much as  the  prelatic  claim  of  trusteeship 
is  not  generally  admitted,  it  may  be  well 
to  have  the  terms  of  unity  as  much  freed 
from  debatable  matter  as  possible.  In 
place  of  the  discarded  preamble,  the  Quad- 
rilateral is  presented  simply  as  supplying 
"  a  basis  on  which  approach  may  be 
by  God's  blessing  made  toward  Home- 
reunion" —  a  phrase  explained  elsewhere 
as  affording  "  a  basis  for  a  United  Church, 
including  at  least  the  chief  Christian  com- 
munions of  our  people,"  —  "with  large 
freedom  of  variation  on  secondary  points 
of  doctrine,  worship,  and  discipline."  1 
The  supplement  of  the  American  Decla- 

1  Lambeth  Conferences  of  1833,  pp.  280,  333-335. 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  27 

ration  was  also  modified.    Instead  of  refer- 
ring to  other  churches  somewhat  vaguely 
as    "  Christian    bodies,"    the    Conference 
definitely   characterizes    them    as    having 
"standards  of  doctrine,  worship,  and  gov- 
ernment ;  "  expresses  the  belief  that  "  even 
in  respect  of  Church  government"  a  basis 
of  agreement  may  be  found  with  non-con- 
forming communions ;  announces  a  readi- 
ness for  brotherly  conference  with  them, 
« in  order  to  consider  what  steps  can  be 
taken,  either  toward  corporate  reunion,  or 
toward  such  relations  as  may  prepare  the 
way  for  fuller  organic  unity  hereafter;" 
and  finally,  with  a  view  to  this  end,  recom- 
mends a  comparative  study  of  "  the  stand- 
ards  of    the   Anglican    Church   and    the 
authoritative  standards  of  doctrine,  worship, 
and   government    adopted    by  the    other 
bodies   into   which  the    English-speaking 
races  are  divided." 1 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  logical  effect  ot 
the  Pan-Anglican  revision  has  been  to 
detach  the  Lambeth  principles,  as  they  may 
now  be  called,2  from  local  and  denomina- 

1  Lambeth  Conferences,  p.  281. 

2  The  Convention  at  Baltimore  adopted  formally  the 
Four  Principles  as  amended  by  the  Lambeth  Conference. 


28  CnURCII   UNITY 

national  peculiarities  in  both  the  American 
and  Anglican  churches,  and  to  plant  them 
in  the  midst  of  all  English-speaking  com- 
munions as  tenets  of  Catholic  unity.  There 
they  stand  to-day.  They  may  be  deserted 
by  those  who  planted  them  there,  and  be 
left  as  a  monumental  folly  on  the  high- 
way of  time ;  or  they  may  become  hence- 
forth the  rallying  standard  of  a  reunited 
Christendom. 

Without  attempting  a  full  exposition  of 
these  principles,  we  need  only  in  this  lec- 
ture take  a  general  view  of  their  fitness  to 
the  ecclesiastical  situation  in  our  own 
country.  They  may  be  regarded  as  afford- 
ing a  consensus  of  Catholic  churches ;  of 
Protestant  churches;  of  Protestant  with 
Catholic  churches. 

THE   LAMBETH    CONSENSUS    OF     CATHOLIC 
CHURCHES. 

And  first  let  us  consider  their  fitness  to 
those  great  historic  churches,  the  Ortho- 
dox Greek  and  Roman  Catholic*  which 
though  they  have  their  seat  in  Europe, 
extend  their  jurisdiction  over  portions  of 
the  American  people.  The  Greek  Church, 
numbering  some  eighty-four   millions    in 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  29 

Christendom,  prevails  as  yet  only  in  the 
territory  of  Alaska,  with  a  few  scattered 
congregations  in  our  cities ;  but  religious 
or  political  events  may  yet  give  it  more 
American  importance.  It  possesses  all  the 
Four  Lambeth  Principles,  encumbered  by 
dogmas  and  rites  more  or  less  inconsistent 
with  them.  It  holds  the  first  article,  while 
adding  the  authority  of  tradition  to  that  of 
Scripture.  It  holds  the  second  article, 
while  rejecting  from  the  Nicene  Creed  the 
clause  which  teaches  the  double  procession 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  from  the  Father  and  the 
Son  (Filioque).  It  holds  the  third  article, 
but  adds  to  the  two  sacraments  of  our  Lord 
the  church  sacraments  of  confirmation, 
penance,  holy  orders,  extreme  unction,  and 
matrimony;  administers  baptism  and  the 
eucharist  to  mere  infants,  with  trine  immer- 
sion and  presbyterial  confirmation ;  and 
includes  in  its  ritual  the  intercession  of 
saints,  the  adoration  of  the  Virgin,  and  the 
worship  of  sacred  pictures.  It  holds  the 
fourth  article,  though  superimposing  upon 
the  historic  episcopate  a  patriarchate  which 
at  times  has  rivalled  the  papacy.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  numbering  two 
hundred  and  fifteen  millions  of  Christians, 


30  CIWRCIl   UNITY 

with  at  least  eight  millions  in  the  United 
States,  has  been  growing  enormously  by- 
natural  increase  and  immigration.  It  also 
maintains  the  Four  Principles,  but  in  con- 
nection with  even  more  serious  inconsis- 
tencies. To  Holy  Scripture  it  has  added, 
not  only  apostolic  tradition,  but  a  papal 
infallibility  in  interpreting  both  Scripture 
and  tradition.  To  the  Nicene  Creed  it  has 
added  not  only  the  Filioque,  by  winch  it 
excommunicated  all  Eastern  Christendom, 
but  the  dogmas  of  Trent,  by  which  it  ex- 
communicated the  whole  Protestant  body. 
To  the  two  sacraments  it  has  added  not 
only  the  five  other  church  sacraments  not 
instituted  by  Christ,  but  the  doctrine  of 
transubstantiation,  the  denial  of  the  cup, 
masses  for  souls  in  purgatory,  the  invoca- 
tion of  saints,  the  worship  of  relics,  and  a 
Mariolatry  crowned  with  the  dogma  of  the 
immaculate  conception.  And  to  the  his- 
toric episcopate  it  has  added  not  merely 
the  Roman  primacy,  but  the  claims  of  a 
universal  bishop  and  vicar  of  Christ  on 
earth.  It  is  plain,  that  the  discord  of 
Anglican  with  Greek  and  Latin  Christi- 
anity is  far  greater  than  the  concord. 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  31 

THE   LAMBETH   CONSENSUS    OF    PROTES- 
TANT  CHURCHES. 

As  we  pass  to  the  Protestant  side  of 
Christendom  we  find  the  picture  reversed. 
The  churches  of  the  Reformation  are 
largely  in  accord  with  the  Lambeth  articles. 
At  the  head  is  the  Lutheran  Church,  with 
twenty  million  members  in  Europe  and  a 
million  in  America.  It  has  retained  the 
Holy  Scriptures  as  the  only  rule  of  faith ; 
the  two  creeds,  together  with  the  Athana- 
sian  Creed  and  the  Augsburg  Confession ; 
the  two  sacraments,  with  large  portions  of 
the  Catholic  sacramentary ;  and  the  historic 
episcopate  as  an  expedient  institution  in 
Germany,  with  an  apostolical  succession  in 
Sweden  and  Moravia  which  is  as  undis- 
puted as  the  Anglican  and  with  which 
the  American  Lutheran  communion  is 
about  to  reinforce  its  evangelical  ministry. 
Next  appear  the  reformed  churches,  Dutch, 
French,  and  German,  —  less  numerous  but 
more  potent  as  yet  in  our  American  Chris- 
tianity. These  churches  retained  the 
Scriptures  as  the  very  word  of  God  written ; 
the  Apostles'  Creed,  with  the  Heidelberg 
Catechism  and  the  Canons  of  Dort ;  and 


32  CHURCH   UNITY 

the  two  Sacraments,  with  General  Confes- 
sion and  Absolution,  and  a  simple  Pro- 
testant liturgy.  But  being  precluded  by 
their  political  circumstances  from  reform- 
ing the  historic  episcopate,  they  continued 
the  historic  presbyterate,  enriching  it  with 
those  principles  of  lay  representation  and 
church  freedom  which  have  since  passed 
into  the  Scottish  and  American  churches. 
Then  comes  into  view  the  Church  of 
England,  the  most  numerous  and  powerful 
of  the  English-speaking  communions, 
though  hitherto  least  potent  in  moulding 
our  Christian  institutions.  The  English 
Church  in  its  reformation  retained  the 
canonical  Scriptures  as  containing  all 
things  necessary  to  salvation;  the  two 
creeds,  with  the  Athanasian  Creed  and  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles ;  the  two  sacraments, 
with  a  mixture  of  Catholic  and  Protestant 
formularies  in  its  liturgy,  with  portions  of 
the  Roman  Breviary  in  its  daily  service, 
and  with  the  ceremonies  of  confirmation, 
matrimony,  and  burial  in  its  ritual.  But 
its  historic  episcopate  being  in  the  hands 
of  baronial  bishops,  it  naturally  continued 
them  as  a  prelatic  order  in  the  ministry,  to 
which  has  since  been  easily  attached  the 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  33 

claim  of  an  exclusive  prelatic  succession 
from    the    apostles.      The    corresponding 
American  Church  has  acquired  this  Angli- 
can episcopate  as  supported  by  an  admir- 
able Presbyterian  house  of  deputies.    Next 
we  have  the  Church  of  Scotland,  less  beauti- 
ful than  her  queenly  sister  of  England,  but 
of  the  same  lineage  and  the  most  vigorous 
ecclesiastical  force  in  our  Christian  civiliza- 
tion.    The  Scottish  Church  also  retained 
the   canonical    Scriptures;    the    Apostles' 
Creed,  with  the  Westminster  Confession  as 
an  expansion  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles; 
and  the  two  Sacraments  connected  with  a 
Directory  ensuring  the  unfailing  use  of  the 
appointed  words  and  elements ;    its  Pres- 
byterian   associates    in    England    having 
failed  to  establish  the  revised  Prayer-Book. 
But,   being   less   entangled  with  the   old 
political  hierarchy,  it  declared  that  it  had 
been  "  reformed  from  popery,  not  by  pre- 
lates, but  by  presbyters,  as  the  only  succes- 
sors left  by  Christ  and  his  apostles  in  the 
Church."     And  this  historic  presbyterate, 
as  not  inconsistent  with  the  pure  historic 
episcopate,  but  antedating  both  the  prelatic 
and  the  papal  sway  in  Britain,  and  con- 
fessedly traceable  back  to  the  apostles'  time, 
3 


34  CHURCH    UNITY 

has  been  perpetuated  by  the  American 
presbyteries  with  scrupulous  care  through 
all  their  conflicts  and  separations.  As  to 
the  strictly  post-reformation  communions, 
such  as  the  Congregationalist,  Baptist,  and 
Methodist  churches,  so  dominant  in  our 
evangelical  Christianity,  it  need  only  be 
said  that,  although  they  do  not  formally 
profess  the  Lambeth  principles,  yet  they 
are  practically  agreed  in  the  first  two 
articles ;  might  find  a  consensus  in  the 
sacramental  article  by  mutual  tolerance; 
and  could  have  their  congregational,  pres- 
byterial,  and  episcopal  elements  normally 
combined  in  the  historic  episcopate,  as  in 
the  undivided  Apostolic  Church,  without 
loss  of  principle  or  prestige.  In  a  word, 
when  thus  harmonized,  the  concord  of 
Anglican  with  Protestant  Christianity  al- 
most drowns  the  discord. 

PKOTESTANT     AND     CATHOLIC     EEUKION 

In  order  to  complete  this  survey  let  us 
now  imagine  Catholicism  to  have  been  re- 
united, and  Protestantism  to  have  been 
reunited,  each  on  the  Lambeth  basis. 
The  problem  would  then  remain,  to  re- 
unite  Protestantism  with   Catholicism  on 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  35 

the  same  basis.  The  elements  of  the  pro- 
blem are  very  mixed,  —  some  favorable, 
some  unfavorable.  First  among  the 
former  is  the  actual  consent  of  the  two 
sections  of  Christendom  in  the  Lambeth 
principles.  They  already  have  at  least 
one  common  rule  of  faith,  much  common 
catholic  doctrine,  two  common  sacraments, 
and  a  common  historic  ministry,  whether 
traced  from  the  apostles  through  pope, 
prelate,  or  presbyter.  And  from  both  sides 
some  approaches  have  even  been  made  to- 
ward reunion  upon  the  basis  of  such  a 
consensus.  On  the  Catholic  side  we  have 
had  the  official  correspondence  between 
the  Anglican  and  Greek  churches,  through 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople ;  the  Old 
Catholic  Reformation  from  within  the 
Roman  Church  protesting  against  the 
papal  infallibility,  and  along  other  lines 
approximating  Protestantism;  the  Bonn 
conferences  looking  to  a  confederation  of 
Anglican,  Russian,  Greek,  and  Old  Cath- 
olic churches  on  the  basis  of  a  primitive 
consensus  existing  before  the  division  of 
Christendom  and  largely  identical  with 
the   Lambeth  principles ;    and  finally,  the 


86  CHURCH  UNITY 

Encyclical  Letters  of  the  Roman  Pontiff, 
inviting  all  Protestants  and  Orthodox 
Greek  Christians  to  return  to  the  Mother 
of  churches. 

PROTESTANT    APPROACHES    TOWARD 
REUNION 

On  the  other  side,  we  have  no  less  re- 
markable approaches  toward  reunion, — 
such  as  the  Catholic  revival  of  the  last 
fifty  years  in  the  Church  of  England,  and 
more  recently  in  the  Church  of  Scotland; 
the  general  Protestant  reaction,  as  shown 
in  all  denominations  by  a  growing  obser- 
vance of  the  church  year,  a  recovery  of 
portions  of  the  Catholic  liturgy,  and  a 
renewed  appreciation  of  church  history 
and  Christian  antiquity.  We  have  also 
an  increasing  association  of  Protestants 
with  Catholics  in  many  humanitarian  and 
Christian  movements.  When  it  is  added 
that  in  our  own  country  the  tAVO  have 
been  brought  under  social  fusion  within 
a  democratic  environment,  already  en- 
gendering a  Catholic  type  of  Christianity 
in  Protestantism,  and  a  Protestant  type 
of  intelligence  and  freedom  in  Catholi- 
cism,  the  dream  of  reunion  will  not  seem 


GENERAL    PRINCIPLES  37 

purely  chimerical.  Influenced  by  the 
glowing  vision,  a  great  scholar  even  im- 
agined the  Pope  inviting  "a  fraternal 
Pan-Christian  Council  in  Jerusalem,  where 
the  Mother  Church  of  Christendom  held 
the  first  council  of  reconciliation  and 
peace.  But,"  he  adds,  "  whether  in  Jeru- 
salem or  Rome,  or  (as  Cardinal  Wiseman 
thought)  in  Berlin,  or  (as  some  Americans 
think)  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  the 
war  between  Rome,  Wittenberg,  Geneva, 
and  Oxford  will  be  fought  out  to  a  peace- 
ful end,  when  all  the  churches  shall  be 
throughly  Christianized  and  all  the  creeds 
of  Christendom  unified  in  the  creed  of 
Christ."  1 

THE   PROBLEM     OF    REUNION    DIFFICULT 

The  problem,  however,  has  other  ele- 
ments which  are  not  so  bright  and  hope- 
ful, and  may  for  the  present  turn  the  scale. 
It  cannot  be  forgotten  that  the  consensus 
of  Protestant  and  Catholic  opinion  is  not 
only  greatly  outweighed  by  the  dissensus, 
but  as  yet  is  purely  theoretical,  having 
been  expressed  only  in  courteous  corre- 
spondence  without   much  substantial  in- 

1  Dr.  Schaff's  "  Reunion  of  Christendom,"  p.  28. 


38  CHURCH   UNITY 

tercommunion.  The  Greek  Church  has 
never  repealed  the  decrees  of  Constanti- 
nople against  the  Reformers.  To  some 
critics  the  occasional  Anglican  advances 
toward  the  Greek  Church  look  like  mere 
ecclesiastical  coquetry  or  an  adroit  flank 
movement  against  the  Roman  Church, 
rather  than  direct  attempts  at  true  unity. 
The  thirteen  Patriarchs  in  their  recent 
Encyclical  have  also  repelled  the  papal 
advances.  The  Old  Catholic  movement 
was  an  external,  not  an  internal,  reforma- 
tion of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  was  a 
mere  ripple  compared  with  the  Eastern 
schism  or  the  Protestant  revolt.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church  still  stands,  sepa- 
rated by  the  chasm  of  a  thousand  years 
from  the  Eastern  Church,  and  by  four 
centuries  from  all  the  Reformed  churches, 
meanwhile  having  gained  more  in  num- 
bers than  it  had  lost ;  and  so  far  from 
relaxing  the  excommunicating  decrees  of 
Trent,  has  reinforced  them  with  new  dog- 
mas, binding  together  its  whole  commun- 
ion as  with  tenfold  bands  of  steel.  At 
the  present  moment  it  is  demonstrating 
its  prestige  through  a  plenipotentiary 
delegate  in  the  midst  of  our  churches. 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES 


From  the  Protestant  side,  also,  the  ap- 
proaches have  been  of  a  mixed  issue, 
divisive  as  well  as  conciliatory.  The 
Anglo-Catholic  revival,  however  just  and 
beautiful  in  itself,  has  thus  far  bred  a 
harvest  of  reverts  to  Romanism,  and  is 
necessarily  accompanied  with  an  anti- 
papal  policy  not  conducive  to  reunion. 
It  is  a  jarring  note  even  in  the  Chicago 
and  Lambeth  declarations.  The  Protes- 
tant reaction  in  other  reformed  churches, 
though  inevitable  and  wise,  is  still  over- 
charged with  hatred  of  popery,  and  even 
meets  the  most  patriotic  advances  with 
fresh  outbursts  of  native  Americanism. 
He  must  shut  his  eyes  to  facts  who  looks 
for  a  new  Protestant  Catholicism  to  be 
reached  at  a  bound,  as  by  a  feat  of  logic 
or  stroke  of  policy.  That  distant  goal 
can  only  be  approached  with  slow  and 
painful  steps,  through  alternate  defeat 
and  victory,  as  a  conquered  peace  of  the 
Church. 

PROTESTANT   UNIFICATION  A 
PRE-REQUISTTE 

My  design  in  thus  stating  this  great 
problem  has  not  been  to  indulge  in  mere 


40  CHURCH   UNITY 

prophetic  visions,  whether  cheerful  or 
gloomy,  but  rather  to  open  the  way  for  two 
important  inferences  from  the  whole  sur- 
vey, for  which  we  are  now  ready.  I  can 
only  state  them  without  fully  developing 
them.  One  of  them  is,  that  the  ecclesiasti- 
cal unification  of  Protestant  Christianity 
on  the  Lambeth  basis  must  precede  the 
general  reunion  of  Christendom.  At  least, 
for  Anglo-Saxon  Christians  this  is  the 
first  step  and  condition  precedent.  The 
Greek  Church  is  still  unreformecl  and  over- 
grown with  accumulated  errors.  The 
Latin  Church,  even  more  erroneous,  is  not 
only  unreformed,  but  hostile.  To  indulge 
in  wasteful  attempts  at  unification  with 
such  communions  is  to  begin  at  the  end. 
We  shall  more  wisely  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning, if  we  first  seek  unity  where  it  is  most 
needed  and  most  hopefully  pursued,  in  our 
own  country  and  among  our  own  divided 
churches  and  denominations.  In  com- 
bining them  organically  by  means  of  the 
four  ecclesiastical  principles  of  a  common 
rule  of  faith,  a  common  creed,  common 
sacraments,  and  a  common  ministry  every- 
where to  be  recognized  as  legitimate,  we 
shall  heal  the  sectarian  diseases  of  Protes- 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES  41 

tantism  and  repair  the  destructive  effects 
of  tlif  Reformation.  We  shall  secure  at 
once  a  sounder  Protestantism  and  a  more 
constructive  reformation,  and  so  recover 
all  that  is  best  in  Catholic  Christianity 
while  retaining  all  that  is  best  in  Protestant 
culture.  And  then,  too,  we  shall  have  the 
vantage  ground  for  influencing  the  older 
communions;  in  no  hostile  manner,  but 
externally,  by  surrounding  them,  especially 
in  this  country,  with  the  organized  Christian 
intelligence  of  the  age  ;  and  internally,  by 
combining  with  any  fresh  Protestantism 
and  new  reformation  within  their  own 
pale.  It  is  mainly,  if  not  solely,  by  a  reac- 
tionary influence  of  Protestantism  upon 
Catholicism  that  the  two  can  ever  be  pre- 
pared for  mutual  appreciation,  on  the  basis 
of  common  ecclesiastical  principles.  In  a 
word,  the  reunion  of  Anglo-Saxon  Christi- 
anity is  essential  to  its  reunion  with  Latin 
and  Greek  Christianity. 

THE   PPESBYTEPIAN   AND   EPISCOPAL 
CHURCHES 

The  other  inference  is,  that  in  this  work 
of  Protestant  unification  the  Presbyterian 


42  CIIURCU   UNITY 

Church  stands  next  to  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church,  as  together  with  it  holding 
the  key  of  the  situation.  In  this  country, 
at  least,  they  are  the  two  chief  English- 
speaking  communions,  and  have  a  common 
mission  in  promoting  American  church 
unity.  If  it  be  granted  that  the  Episcopal 
Church  seems  destined  to  be  the  Church  of 
the  Reconciliation,  mediating  between  the 
extreme  wings  of  Christendom  by  its  com- 
bined Catholic  and  Protestant  formularies, 
yet  it  still  needs  the  balancing  influences 
represented  by  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
on  the  one  side,  to  prevent  it  from  careen- 
ing as  a  mere  feeder  to  the  Roman  com- 
munion, and  on  the  other  side  to  keep  it 
in  vital  connection  with  the  whole  reformed 
communion.  Its  theoretical  position  will 
otherwise  become  practically  untenable. 
If  it  be  urged  that  it  is  the  natural  nucleus 
of  church  unity  in  our  Anglo-American 
civilization,  yet  the  two  sister  churches 
have  had  a  common  history  in  the  mother 
country  and  still  have  correlate  standards, 
ecclesiastical  affinities,  and  common  inter- 
ests, which  fit  them  to  march  together  as 
the  advanced  column  toward  the  United 
Church  of  the  United  States,  drawing  after 


G I  N  /.  R . !  I   PR  IN  CI  PL  EB  4  3 

them  other  churches  and  denominations.1 
In  a  word,  as  the  general  reunion  of 
Christendom  turns  upon  the  reunion 
of  Protestantism  and  Catholicism,  so  the 
reunion  of  Protestantism  and  Catholicism 
turns  upon  the  reunion  of  presbytery  and 
episcopacy. 

THE     RECENT    ECCLESIASTICAL 
CONFERENCES 

It  is  a  striking  proof  of  the  common 
mission  of  the  two  churches  that  as  yet 
they  are  the  only  two  communions  in 
Christendom  winch  have  met  on  the  Lam- 
beth basis  for  formal  conferences.  Dur- 
ing  the   past   six   years    they   have   been 

1  It  may  be  added,  that  the  situation  is  complicated 
by  rival  claimants,  Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic.  Not 
only  do  the  Orthodox  Greek  and  Roman  Catholic 
branches  of  the  historic  episcopate  co-exist  with  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  in  our  country ;  but  we  have  also 
the  Moravian  and  Reformed  episcopates,  and  are  likely- 
soon  to  have  a  Lutheran  episcopate,  all  claiming  equal 
validity  with  the  Anglican.  Amid  this  confusion  and 
conflict  of  denominational  episcopates,  the  unification  of 
the  Presbyterian  and  Protestant  Episcopal  churches  may 
be  important  in  maintaining  the  ascendency  of  the 
Anglo-American  type  of  ecclesiastical  Christianity  in 
our  civilization. 


44  CHURCII   UNITY 

negotiating  through,  authorized  represent- 
atives. It  is  true,  and  a  pity  'tis  true, 
that  these  conferences  have  met  with  a 
temporary  check  and  recoil.  But  no  irrec- 
oncilable differences  have  been  brought 
to  light.  Simply  some  mistakes  have 
been  made,  which  it  is  easy  now  to  under- 
stand. With  the  utmost  respect  and  def- 
erence, I  beg  to  state  them  frankly.  On 
the  one  side,  it  was  a  mistake  when  nego- 
tiating with  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  alone,  to  make  common  cause 
with  other  less  ecclesiastical  denomina- 
tions on  the  trivial  side-issue  of  an  indis- 
criminate exchange  of  pulpits.  And  the 
mistake  was  aggravated  by  putting  this 
"  doctrine  of  ministerial  reciprocity "  of- 
fensively in  front  of  other  and  weightier 
questions  upon  "which  it  depended  and 
making  it  a  seeming  condition  of  any 
further  conferences.  On  the  other  side, 
it  was  a  mistake  to  meet  that  side-issue 
in  a  newspaper  symposium  with  a  peace- 
measure  which  was  like  Dr.  Pusey's 
Eirenicon,  "  an  olive  branch  discharged 
from  a  catapult."  And  afterwards,  when 
the  Presbyterian  Committee  had  explained 
their  unfortunate   action  and  sent  such  a 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  45 

messenger  of  peace,1  was  it  wise,  if  quite 
just  or  necessary,  to  terminate  the  sus- 
pended conferences?2  Such  mistakes  arc; 
mere  passing  shadows  upon  the  onward 
movement,  and  will  do  more  good  than 
harm  if  they  help  us  to  see  the  real  mis- 
conceptions which  still  becloud  the  situa- 
tion on  both  sides  of  the  horizon.  Let  us 
deal  with  them  faithfully  and  in  the  spirit 
of  the  most  perfect  Christian  candor  and 
patience. 

PKESBYTERIAN   MISCONCEPTIONS 

And  first,  the  Presbyterian  misconcep- 
tions. One  of  them  is  a  general  misap- 
prehension of  the  spirit  and  motive  of  the 
Lambeth  proposals.  It  is  often  said  that 
our    Episcopal   friends    are     "insincere," 

1  The  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  T.  Smith :  "  The  visit  was  made, 
not  on  the  invitation  of  the  Episcopal  Commission,  but 
by  appointment  of  the  Presbyterian  Committee.  Ami 
this  appointment  was,  under  the  circumstances,  an  act  of 
such  marked  magnanimity  that  it  ought  to  be  known." 
The  Churchman,  February,  1896. 

2  "Whether  right  or  wrong,"  says  Dr.  Smith,  "the 
Episcopal  Commission  regarded  the  action  of  the  As- 
sembly of  1893  as  an  abandonment  of  the  negotiations 
on  which  we  had  thus  far  been  engaged  and  as  equiva- 
lent to  the  expression  of  a  desire  on  its  part  that  all 
negotiations  between  us  should  cease." 


46  CIIURCH  UNITY 

"arrogant,"  "offensive,"  in  offering  terms 
of  unity  to  other  historic  churches  that 
they  will  only  characterize  as  "  Christian 
bodies,"  "sects,"  and  even  "dissenters." 
Such  fashions  of  speech,  whatever  may  be 
thought  of  them,  do  not  alter  facts  and 
things.  The  Church  of  England  is  re- 
garded  as  no  better  than  a  sect  by  the 
oldest  churches  in  Christendom;  and  the 
Episcopal  Church  in  Scotland  is  treated 
as  only  a  dissenting  Christian  body,  whose 
prelates  could  not  lawfully  take  prece- 
dence of  a  Presbyterian  minister.  The 
gracious  Queen  herself  devoutly  receives 
Presbyterian  communion.  In  a  country 
like  ours,  with  no  established  religion,  why 
withhold  the  civil  title  "Church"  while 
conceding  the  polite  use  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical title  "Reverend"?  Such  slights 
to  some  minds  are  as  irritating  as  the 
Roman  Catholic  repudiation  of  Anglican 
orders.  Nevertheless,  the  simple  fact 
that  in  the  face  of  such  inconsistences  and 
at  the  risk  of  sacrificing  courtesy  to  prin- 
ciple, some  Episcopalians  do  take  high 
churchly  ground  against  Presbyterian 
orders,  shows  the  strength  and  honesty 
of  their  convictions.     Does  any  one  doubt 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  47 

that  they  do  not  feel  keenly  their  isolation 
from  their  fellow  Christians?  Why,  they 
have   been   discussing   among   themselves 

this  matter  of  church  unity  for  fifty 
years,  while  Presbyterians  have  not  moved 
an  inch  toward  them.  After  much  mis- 
giving they  have  offered  grave  conces- 
sions, upon  which  Presbyterians  have  only 
advanced  with  fresh  demands  and  scruples. 
One  feels  almost  ashamed  to  notice  such 
objections,  when  he  thinks  of  that  apostle 
of  the  movement,  the  noble-hearted  Muh- 
lenberg, and  now,  alas !  of  its  zealous 
martyr,  the  lamented  Langdon,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  still  living  advocates,  who 
are  showing  us  every  day  that  the  strict- 
est churchmanship  may  consist  with  an 
earnest  desire  for  church  unity. 

There  is  also  a  Presbyterian  misconcep- 
tion of  the  scope  of  the  historic  episco- 
pate. Because  that  much  misrepresented 
institution  is  sometimes  vindicated  on  ex- 
treme High  Church  ground,  as  involving 
an  exclusively  prelatical  transmission  of 
supernatural  grace  from  the  apostles,  and 
because  it  is  proffered  for  acceptance  with 
all  the  claims  and  appliances  of  a  priestly 
ritual,  it  is  inferred  that  such  is  the  only 


48  CnURCH   UNITY 

opinion  or  theory  that  can  be  attached  to 
it  and  made  congruous  with  it.  In  point 
of  fact,  however,  as  every  student  of 
church  history  knows,  the  greatest  variety 
of  opinions  and  theories  have  been  con- 
nected with  it  and  are  now  loyally  sup- 
porting   it.1       For    this    reason,    from    a 

1  The  Rev.  Francis  J.  Hall,  in  his  lecture  before  the 
Church  Club  of  New  York,  has  done  me  the  honor  to 
comment  upon  this  view  of  the  historic  episcopate,  and 
I  am  glad  to  find  it  supported  by  his  reasoning.  He 
shows  conclusively,  that  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
"has  not  inserted  her  doctrine  of  the  Ministry  in  the 
constitution  of  her  general  convention ; "  that  "  she 
has  nowhere  set  forth  her  doctrine  of  the  Ministry  in 
connected  order  and  detail  in  her  formularies ;  "  and 
that  "she  has  not  defined  the  doctrine  of  Apostolical 
Succession  in  set  terms  "  (pp.  158-161 ).  In  other  words, 
it  is  not  a  Church  dogma  set  forth  in  the  Church  stand- 
ards as  an  essential  part  of  the  Catholic  faith,  but  is 
simply  a  pious  opinion  neither  enjoined  nor  forbidden. 
As  an  opinion  it  is  indeed  now  held  in  various  forms 
and  degrees  by  various  schools  of  churchmen;  but  as  a 
so-called  Catholic  doctrine  it  is  not  defined,  or  even 
named,  in  the  creeds,  articles,  ordinal,  or  Prayer-Book. 
The  mere  occurrence  of  the  vague  phrase,  "  Ministers 
of  the  Apostolical  Succession,"  in  an  American  collect 
seldom  used,  is  not  a  definition  of  Catholic  doctrine; 
nor  would  that  phrase,  as  strictly  construed,  imply  any- 
thing more  than  a  general  or  presbyterial  succession  of 
the  Avhole  Christian  ministry. 

As  no  view  of  Apostolic  Succession  is  either  enjoined 
or  forbidden  in  the  Prayer-Book,  so  none  is  enjoined  or 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES  49 

church  unity  point  of  view,  there  is  no 
need  to  say  a  word  against  our  ritualistic 
friends,  or  to  assail  their  view  of  apostolic 
succession.  The  historic  episcopate  is 
large  enough  to  include  them,  and  we  may 
hope  that  our  enlightened  bishops  will 
give  them  all  the  room  they  want,  pro- 
vided that  room  enough  be  left  for  those 
Presbyterian  churchmen,  otherwise  called 
Evangelical  Catholics,  who  gladly  accept 
all  that  is  transmissible  from  the  apostles 
and  can  even  admire  an  artistic  liturgy, 
if  not  obliged  to  adopt  all  the  Roman 
dogmas  sometimes  couched  under  its 
S}rmbolism. 

There  is  still  another  Presbyterian  mis- 
conception as  to  the  supposed  accompani- 
ments or  consequences  of  the  Lambeth  ten- 
ets. It  is  feared  that  they  are  only  an  enter- 
ing wedge,  and  are  so  bound  up  with  the 
constitution  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  that  they  will  yet  draw  after  them 
all  its  legislative  machinery.  Well,  even 
if  that  were  so,  an  elective  episcopate,  with 
Presbyterian  deputies,  would  not  be  an  un- 
forbidden in  the  Quadrilateral.  It  is  this  largeness  of 
interpretation  which  makes  the  historic  episcopate  at 
once  so  ample  and  so  tenacious  a  bond  of  church  unity. 
4 


50  CHURCH  UNITY 

mixed  calamity.  It  is  conceivable  that 
Presbyterians  and  Episcopalians  might 
live  happily  together  in  such  an  Ameri- 
can church  as  contrasted  with  the  un- 
presbyterianized  Church  of  England.  But 
the  truth  is,  that  the  Lambeth  principles 
are  no  longer  solely  Anglican  or  American 
in  their  limitations.  In  considering  them 
we  are  no  more  concerned  with  the  Pro- 
testant Episcopal  Church  than  with  the 
Church  of  England,  and  no  more  con- 
cerned with  the  Church  of  England  than 
with  any  other  portion  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  We  are  only  concerned  with 
the  historic  episcopate  as  represented  by 
the  Anglican  branch  of  it.  Theoretically, 
we  are  not  even  concerned  with  the  Angli- 
can branch  of  it,  since  the  same  bond  of 
church  unity  might  be  effected  with  the 
Moravian,  Swedish,  or  Old  Catholic  branch 
of  it.  Practically,  however,  we  are  most 
naturally  and  hopefully  concerned  with 
our  American  College  of  Bishops,  who 
have  openly  shown  that  they  are  at  once 
the  most  cautious  and  the  most  progres- 
sive part  of  the  communion  to  which  they 
belong,  at  least  as  respects  church  unity. 
They  have  nobly  taken  a  position  outside 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  51 

of  that  communion,  before  the  whole  Chris- 
tian world,  as  "bishops  in  the  church  of 
God,"  and  are  not  likely  now  to  retreat 
from  it  because  of  any  tardy  or  reluctant 
following  on  the  part  of  a  school  or  a 
faction. 

EPISCOPALIAN    MISCONCEPTIONS 

On  the  other  side  are  some  grave  Epis- 
copalian misconceptions  which  should  be 
discussed  with  equal  frankness.  One  of 
them  is  the  general  misapprehension  of 
the  Presbyterian  idea  of  the  Church.  It 
seems  to  be  assumed  by  our  separated 
brethren  that  Presbyterians  are  not  church- 
men. Yet  they  claim  to  be  good  church- 
men? There  is  not  a  tenet  of  sound 
churchmanship  which,  they  do  not  hold, 
and  hold  as  tenaciously  as  the  mass  of 
Episcopalian  churchmen.  Is  the  test  to 
be  Catholicity,  the  claim  to  be  a  part  of 
the  Catholic  Church?  Before  the  Protest- 
ant Episcopal  Church  was  born,  the 
Presbyterian  Church  had  defined  itself 
in  its  standards  as  part  of  that  "Catho- 
lic visible  church  into  which  Christ  hath 
given  the  ministry,  oracles,  and  ordi- 
nances of  God."     Is  the  test  to  be  Apos- 


52  CHURCH   UNITY 

tolicity,  —  connection  with  the  apostolic 
commission  ?  The  succession  of  pres- 
byters from  the  apostles  is  undisputed 
throughout  Christendom,  even  where  the 
prelatic  succession  has  been  broken.  They 
do  not  often  boast  of  it,  nor  too  much 
value  it ;  but  they  have  it,  as  a  person  of 
good  descent  has  such  a  lineage,  and  knows 
that  he  has  it,  though  he  may  not  display 
it  before  the  world.  Lastly,  is  the  test  to 
be  fidelity  to  that  "  sacred  deposit  of  the 
primitive  faith  and  order  which  Christ  and 
his  apostles  committed  to  the  Church  ?  " 1 
There  is  no  sense  in  which  Presbyterian 
ministers  are  not  "  ordained  to  be  stewards 
and  trustees  of  that  deposit  for  the  common 
and  equal  benefit  of  all  men."  Nor  do  they 
hold  one  another  lightly  to  their  ordination 
vows.  They  can,  indeed,  gladly  honor  the 
American  bishops  as  also  and  pre-eminently 
custodians  of  the  same  deposit ;  and  if  they 
do  not  concede  to  them  an  exclusive  "stew- 
ardship of  grace  and  truth,"  in  this  opinion 
they  are  sustained  by  all  the  rest  of  Chris- 
tendom, both  Catholic  and  Protestant. 

There  is  another  Episcopalian  miscon- 
ception as  to  the  historic  liturgy  contained 
1  The  Preamble  of  the  Chicago  Declaration. 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  53 

in  the  Prayer-Book.   It  is  now  held  by  some 
churchmen  that  the   Lambeth   terms   are 

only   "Catholic   minima"  which  may   or 

must  draw  after  them  a  long  train  of 
other  ecclesiastical  requirements  ;  and  it 
has  been  surmised  that  the  addition  of 
the  whole  Prayer-Book  to  those  terms 
would  make  their  acceptance  difficult,  if 
not  impossible,  especially  for  Presbyterians. 
The  day  was,  indeed,  wdien  the  armed  im- 
position of  that  excellent  liturgy  upon  a 
Presbyterian  assembly  in  St.  Giles's  Cathe- 
dral wTas  attended  with  responses  more 
forcible  than  decorous,  and  the  reading  of 
a  single  collect  was  enough  to  kindle  a 
war  of  kingdoms  as  well  as  churches.  But 
"  the  whirligig  of  time  brings  strange  re- 
venges." Let  us  hear  the  sequel:  Jenny 
Geddes  lived  to  throw  that  Presbyterian 
idol,  her  famous  tripod,  into  a  bon-fire  cele- 
brating the  return  of  royalty,  liturgy,  and 
episcopacy.1     It  was  another  extreme  act, 

1  "  I  cannot  help  mentioning  as  remarkable,  that 
on  the  23rd  April,  1661,  Jenny  Geddes,  the  very  woman 
who  had  given  the  first  signal  of  civil  broil  by  throw- 
ing her  stool  at  the  Dean  of  Edinburgh's  head,  when 
he  read  the  service-book  on  the  memorablo  23d  July, 
1637,  showed  her  conversion  to  loyalty  by  contributing 
the  materials   of   her   green-stall,  her   baskets,  shells, 


54  CHURCH    UNITY 

but  the  wisest  and  bravest  aet  of  her  life, 
and  the  spirit  of  it  worthy  of  some  judi- 
cious imitation.  It  has  been  so  imitated 
on  the  very  scene  of  her  exploit.1  It  might 
be  so  imitated  in  the  changed  circumstances 
of  our  own  country.  The  voluntary  re- 
sumption of  the  English  Prayer-Book  for 
optional  use  with  more  spontaneous  ser- 
vices, would  be  neither  inconsistent  nor 
unseemly.  There  never  has  been  any  large 
amount  of  directly  anti-Presbyterian  mate- 
rial in  the  whole  book :  there  is  not  now, 
two  or  three  phrases  excepted.  Moreover, 
it  was  carefully  revised  by  some  of  the 
very  same  Westminster  divines  who  had 
framed  the  Presbyterian  standards.  As 
thus  amended,  it  would  be  an  excellent 
manual  to  accompany  the  Directory  of 
Worship.  No  church  law  or  good  reason 
exists  why  it  should  not  be  used  in  every 

forms,  and  even  her  own  wicker-chair,  to  augment  a 
bon-fire  kindled  in  honor  of  his  Majesty's  coronation,  and 
the  proceedings  of  his  Parliament."  —  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  Tales  of  a  Grandfather,  Second  Series,  Vol.  I. 

1  The  Church  Service  Society,  of  which  the  Duke 
of  Argyle  is  president,  has  issued  an  edition  of  the 
Scottish  Book  of  Common  Order,  which  is  composed 
largely  of  portions  of  the  English  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  and  is  already  in  use  in  many  parishes  of  the 
Established  Church  of  Scotland. 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  55 

Presbyterian  Church  on  Fifth  Avenue,  or 

wherever  else  there  is  a  state  of  culture 
requiring  it.  By  all  means  let  us  have 
the  Prayer-Book,  "  from  cover  to  cover,"  l 
from  its  Calvinistie  Declaration  of  ab- 
solution to  its  collect  for  instituting  pres- 
byters as  ministers  of  the  Apostolic 
Succession. 

There  is  a  still  graver  Episcopalian  mis- 
conception of  the  motives  and  reasons 
with  which  the  historic  episcopate  might 
be  accepted.  To  some  denominations,  no 
doubt,  it  presents  itself  as  subversive  of 
their  entire  doctrine  and  polity,  but  not  to 
the  most  intelligent  and  consistent  Presby- 
terians. To  them  it  would  simply  be  a 
development  of  the  apostolic  presbyterate, 
desirable  in  the  interest  of  church  unity. 
Whenever  ready  to  accept  it,  it  would  not 
be  because  they  doubted  the  validity  of 
their  own  ministry  and  sacraments  :  as  to 
tins  they  would  retain  the  freedom  of  their 
own  thoughts.  It  would  not  be  solely  that 
they  might  obtain  certain  acknowledged 
advantages  of  Episcopal  church  govern- 
ment ;    these   they  could  obtain,  like   the 

4  A  phrase  used  in  the  debates  of  the  late  Triennial 
Convention  at  Minneapolis. 


56  CHURCII  UNITY 

Methodist  Episcopalians,  by  developing 
an  episcopate  of  their  own.  It  would  not 
even  be  that  they  might  secure  a  unifying 
sanction  to  their  church  claims ;  for  such 
a  purpose  other  branches  of  the  historic 
episcopate  might  yet  become  available. 
No  ;  it  would  simply  be,  because  they  loy- 
ally and  reverently  recognize  in  the  Anglo- 
American  episcopate  the  organic  centre 
and  bond  of  American  church  unity ;  be- 
cause they  believe  that  episcopate  has  a 
great  catholic  mission,  if  not  a  scriptural 
warrant,  to  promote  such  unity  by  legiti- 
mating evangelical  ministries  where  they 
are  not  now  recognized ;  by  giving  all 
denominations  a  ministry  as  catholic  as  it 
is  legitimate ;  by  knitting  together  ecclesi- 
astical elements,  Congregational,  Presby- 
terial,  and  Episcopal,  which  are  now  dis- 
membered, and  thus  healing  the  wounds 
in  the  body  of  Christ;  in  a  word,  by 
everywhere  restoring  and  completing  the 
one  Holy  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church. 

THE   FEASIBLE  EFFORT  FOE   UNITY. 

The  discussion  has  left  but  little  time 
for  the  most  practical  part  of  the  subject, 
—  the  methods  of  promoting  church  unity 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  57 

on  the  Lambeth  basis.     Unhappily,  these 

are  not  yet  sueli  as  to  satisfy  impatient 
minds  eager  for  immediate  results,  hi 
the  present  state  of  opinion  most  of  us 
can  only  be  Nicodemite  patrons  of  church 
unity.  It  is  too  much  to  expect  that  any 
of  us  should  leave  popular  pulpits,  profes- 
sional chairs,  and  editorial  desks  to  embark 
in  an  anti-denominational  crusade.  Yet 
there  are  some  things  that  we  can  do. 
"Without  detaching  ourselves  from  the 
Christian  denominations  to  which  we  sev- 
erally belong,  or  intending  to  compromise 
our  relations  thereto,  or  seeking  to  interfere 
with  other  efforts  for  Christian  unity,"  x 
we  may  associate  ourselves  voluntarily 
and  informally  for  the  study  of  the  prob- 
lem with  the  view  of  educating  ourselves 
and  others  toward  its  solution.  We  may 
not  adopt  the  Lambeth  principles  outright 
as  axioms ;  but  we  may  at  least  "  accept 
them  as  worthy  of  the  most  thoughtful 
consideration." 1  We  may  not  hope  for 
any  subversion  or  destruction  of  all  exist- 
ing church  organizations  with  revolution- 
ary violence,  but  we  may  believe  that 
"  upon   the   basis   of   these    principles    as 

1  Declaration  of  the  League  of  Catholic  Unity. 


58  CHURCH   UNITY 

articles  of  agreement  the  unification  of 
the  Christian  denominations  of  this  coun- 
try may  proceed,  cautiously  and  steadily, 
without  any  alteration  of  their  existing 
standards  of  doctrine,  polity,  and  worship, 
which  might  not  reasonably  be  made  in  a 
spirit  of  brotherly  love  and  harmony,  for 
the  sake  of  unity  and  for  the  furtherance 
of  all  the  great  ends  of  the  Church  of 
Christ  on  earth."  1  And  finally,  although 
proposing  as  yet  no  method  of  carrying  out 
these  principles,  we  may  recommend  what 
the  Lambeth  Conference  recommends,  a 
comparative  study  of  Episcopal  and  non- 
Episcopal  standards  of  doctrine,  govern- 
ment, and  worship,  with  a  view  to  their 
existing  consensus  and  ultimate  har- 
mony in  one  Holy  Catholic  and  Apostolic 
Church. 

THE  LEAGUE  OF  CATHOLIC  UNITY 

These  are  the  leading  features  of  an 
association  known  as  "  The  League  of 
Catholic  Unity."  It  is  the  only  asso- 
ciation in  existence  which  plants  itself 
squarely  upon  the  Quadrilateral  basis  in 
full   accordance   with    the   Lambeth    pro- 

2  Constitution  of  the  League  of  Catholic  Unity. 


GENERAL   PRINCIPLES  59 

posals.     Other  like  associations   arc   only 

in  part  upon  that  basis,  or  not  in  full 
accord  with  those  proposals.  Experience 
has  shown  that  Church  Unity  societies,  as 
composed  exclusively  of  Episcopal  clergy- 
men, cannot,  by  the  necessity  of  the  case, 
admit  non-Episcopal  ministers  to  a  frank 
and  full  discussion  of  the  general  princi- 
ples of  the  Quadrilateral  platform.  Ecclesi- 
astical conferences,  like  that  between  the 
Presbyterian  and  Episcopal  commissions, 
though  meeting  on  the  Quadrilateral  plat- 
form, are  managed  by  representative  di- 
vines, —  always  tenacious,  sometimes  justly 
enough  tenacious,  as  to  their  respective 
rights  and  dignities.  But  in  the  Council 
of  the  Catholic  League,  or  in  one  of  its 
Local  Circles,  both  Episcopal  and  non- 
Episcopal  ministers,  Congregationalists, 
and  Presbyterians,  as  well  as  Episcopa- 
lians, may  meet  upon  the  Lambeth  basis 
with  equal  rights  and  privileges,  without 
restraint  or  embarrassment,  and  in  a  social 
atmosphere  favorable  to  the  utmost  candor 
and  fraternity.  At  the  same  time  such  a 
band  of  enthusiastic  students,  in  such  cir- 
cumstances and  under  such  influences,  by 
their  discussions  and  printed  papers,  would 


60  CnURCH   UNITY 

naturally  accumulate  a  valuable  litera- 
ture as  an  educational  agency  for  influ- 
encing public  opinion  in  favor  of  church 
unity. 

Without  enlarging  upon  the  mission  and 
methods  of  the  Catholic  Unity  League,  I 
desire  to  recommend,  not  necessarily  the 
league  itself,  but  its  principles,  to  the  young 
men  who  are  looking  forward  to  the  sacred 
ministry.  These  principles  are  in  the 
spirit  of  that  learned  and  catholic-minded 
student  of  the  problem,  the  author  of  the 
"  Creeds  of  Christendom,"  who  has  recom- 
mended Symbolic,1  the  comparative  study 
of  different  church  standards,  as  an  import- 
ant part  of  the  equipment  of  a  theological 
student,  in  view  of  the  conflicting  denomi- 
nations with  which  he  must  come  in  con- 
tact in  our  country.  Especially  may  a 
Presbyterian  minister,  while  loyal  to  his 
own  standards,  endeavor  to  promote  that 
church  unity  which  is  a  cardinal  prin- 
ciple of  the  Presbyterian  polity,  as  well 
as  the  highest  expression  of  Christian 
fraternity. 

i  Theological  Propedeutic.  By  Rev.  Philip  Schaff, 
D.D.,  Professor  in  Union  Theological  Seminary,  N.  Y. 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  Gl 

THE  TBUB   si'IKIT   OE   CHURCH    UNITY 

Let  me  add  a  practical  word  as  to  the 
duty  of  church  unity  and  the  spirit  in 
which  to  promote  it.  Every  day  it  is  be- 
coming plainer  that  the  problem  which  we 
have  been  discussing  is  to  be  solved  not  so 
much  by  logic  as  by  feeling,  —  godlike 
charity  and  brotherly  love.  The  day  for 
mere  logic  has  gone  by.  No  reasonings  of 
ours  could  ever  equal  the  reasonings  of 
those  ancestors,  on  the  other  side,  who  were 
once  in  so  dead  earnest  as  to  exchange  the 
pen  for  the  sword  and  make  martyrs  of  one 
another  at  the  stake  and  upon  the  scaffold. 
Nor  could  any  mere  logic  now  beat  down 
our  inherited  prejudices,  denominational 
rivalries,  and  social  jealousies.  The  oxues- 
tions  which  still  divide  us  can  only  be 
settled  by  being  ignored  with  mutual  tol- 
erance and  left  to  the  natural  operation  of 
the  laws  of  thought,  or  rather  to  the  super- 
natural influences  of  heaven-born  charity. 
The  Christian  love  which  is  already  in  our 
hearts  must  be  allowed  to  embrace  all  our 
fellow  Christians  as  members  with  us  of 
the  visible  Church  of  Christ.  The  supreme 
test  of  church  unity  is  our  Saviour's  own 


62  church  unity 

commandment,  "  Love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self." Do  you  ask  in  this  connection, 
"  Who  is  my  neighbor  ? "  Answer  the 
question,  not  in  the  lowest  sense  of  mere 
almsgiving,  but  in  the  highest  sense  of 
true  charity. 

Who  is  my  neighbor  ?  Not  necessarily 
one  who  lives  nigh  or  near  me.  The  way- 
faring Jew  was  in  this  sense  no  neighbor 
to  the  Samaritan.  Nor  can  mere  local 
neighborship  exhaust  church  membership 
or  church  fellowship.  There  was  indeed 
some  plea  for  the  local  church,  when  it 
landed  on  the  bleak  New  England  coast, 
with  the  stormy  Atlantic  between  it  and  a 
persecuting  Christendom.  But  now,  when 
that  ocean  is  itself  throbbing  with  electric 
sympathy  and  the  whole  Christian  world 
kindling  into  brotherhood,  the  true  church 
member  whom  I  am  to  fellowship  may  live 
in  Old  England  or  in  New  England,  next 
door  or  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe ;  if 
he  is  a  fellow  man  and  a  fellow  Christian, 
he  is  my  neighbor. 

Who  is  my  neighbor  ?  Not  merely  one 
who  is  nigh  of  kin,  of  the  same  blood  or 
race.  The  Jew  was  of  a  different  tribe  or 
nation  from  the  Samaritan.     There  were 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  63 

no  dealings  between  them,  or  a  commerce 
only  of  insults.  Yet  that  foreigner  was 
recognized  as  a  neighbor.  And  so,  mere 
nationality  cannot  limit  church  member- 
ship or  set  bounds  to  church  catholicity. 
If  in  the  old  world  geographical  barriers 
and  political  institutions  seemed  to  make 
necessary  or  convenient  a  German  Church, 
a  Dutch  Church,  a  French  Church,  an 
English  Church,  a  Scotch  Church,  yet  here 
in  this  new  world,  with  all  peoples  and 
kindreds  and  tongues  fusing  in  our  blood 
and  mingling  in  our  households,  nothing 
human  and  Christian  can  be  foreign  to  us. 
My  fellow  church  member  may  be  of  Euro- 
pean or  American  birth,  of  Roman,  Angli- 
can, or  Scottish  training;  if  he  has  the 
same  Father  in  Heaven,  if  he  is  my  kins- 
man in  Christ,  then  he  is  my  neighbor. 

Who  is  my  neighbor  ?  Not  exclusively 
one  who  is  near  to  me  in  his  belief,  of  the 
same  creed  or  sect.  The  Samaritan  had 
been  excommunicated  as  a  heretic  by  the 
Jew,  whose  own  co-religionists,  the  priest 
and  the  Levite,  had  already  passed  him  by 
in  sanctimonious  conceit  and  churchly 
pride.  It  was  that  difference  of  religion, 
rather  than  any  difference  of  race  or  train- 


64  CHURCH   UNITY 

ing,  that  made  the  victory  of  neighborly 
feeling  so  difficult,  yet  so  glorious.  He 
treated  even  his  old  persecutor  as  a  neigh- 
bor. Ah!  there  may  have  seemed  some 
excuse  for  sectarian  animosity  in  Reforma- 
tion times,  when  Christian  men  were  fight- 
ing for  standing  room  in  the  church  of  God, 
and  Catholic  and  Huguenot,  Cavalier  and 
Covenanter  were  carving  out  their  creeds 
with  their  swords,  and  illuminating  them 
with  faggots  ;  but  in  this  free  land  of  free 
churches,  with  all  sects  and  creeds  shedding 
their  errors  and  blending  their  truths  in  the 
searching  light  of  science,  learning,  and 
thought,  who  of  us  can  be  infallible  ?  The 
ideal  churchman  with  whom  I  must  be 
willing  to  fraternize  may  be  Romanist  or 
Protestant,  Calvinist  or  Arminian,  Congre- 
gationalist,Presbyterian,or  Episcopalian,  — 
if  he  is  a  fellow  disciple  of  the  same  divine 
Master,  if  he  is  a  fellow  sinner  who  craves 
the  same  Saviour  to  atone  for  his  errors  and 
for  mine,  —  then  he  is  my  neighbor. 

Can  you  bring  yourself  up  to  the  high 
test  ?  Think  not  of  some  poor  churchless 
outcast  needing  only  your  neighborly  gifts 
of  food  and  raiment.  Think  rather  of  some 
unchurching  or  of  some  unchurched  brother 


GENERAL  PRINCIPLES  65 

in  Christ,  needing  your  neighborly  offices 
of  Christian  love  and  communion.  Think 
of  some  fellow  Christian,  who  seems  as  far 
removed  from  your  type  of  Christian  as  the 
Jew  was  from  the  Samaritan.  Think  of  that 
"  canting  zealot  "  whom  you  thoroughly 
dislike  ;  or  of  that  "  sentimental  ritualist  " 
whom  you  scornfully  pity  ;  of  that  "  rant- 
ing revivalist ;  "  of  that  "  narrow  Bap- 
tist ;  "  of  that  "  rigid  Calvinist ;  "  of  that 
"  lax  Arminian  ;  "  of  that  "  supercilious 
Anglican ;  "  of  that  "  bigoted  Romanist." 
Remember  how  the  Samaritan  loved  the 
hating  and  hated  Jew,  and  "  Go  thou  and 
do  likewise." 


II 

THE    SIN    OF    SCHISM 

Br  the   Rev.   E.  BENJAMIN  ANDREWS,  LL.  D. 
President  of  Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I. 


THE   SIN   OF   SCHISM 

"  T~\ENOMINATION  "  is  a  modern  con- 
JL^  ception.  The  word  does  not  occur 
in  the  New  Testament,  nor  is  the  thought 
there  to  be  voiced  by  any  other  word.  In  the 
sacred  oracles  "  Church  "  is  the  great  idea. 
Jesus  Christ  declared  that  he  would  found 
a  church,  and  that  the  powers  of  hell 
should  not  prevail  against  it.  The  apostles 
seconded  him  in  this  aim,  ever  and  every- 
where toiling  to  add  size  and  beauty  to 
that  divine  body,  the  Church,  whereof 
Christ  was  Head. 

In  New  Testament  conception  the 
Church  is  no  mere  assemblage  of  churches, 
as  has  been  sometimes  imagined,  as  if  the 
local  church  were  primary  and  Church  in 
the  general  sense  secondary.  The  relation 
is  precisely  the  reverse.  The  Church 
Catholic  is  always  the  foremost  notion ; 
so  that  when  the  church  at  Antioch,  for 
instance,   is  spoken  of,  or  the  church  at 


70  CHURCH  UNITY 

Corinth,  the  idea  is  the  Church  general,  so 
far  as  realized  or  manifested  in  this  or  that 
place.  The  Church,  as  viewed  by  the 
New  Testament  writers,  is  not  a  compos- 
ite affair,  made  up  of  diverse  parts,  but  a 
single,  rounded  totality  with  many  facets. 
These  facets  are  the  local  churches. 

This  grand,  primitive  view  of  the  Church, 
as  a  seamless  total,  an  indivisible  whole, 
continued  in  the  thought  of  thoughtful 
Christians  until  the  Reformation.  There 
were  sects,  of  course ;  but  most  of  these,  if 
not  all,  had  the  consciousness  of  sects,  mani- 
festing their  respect  for  the  principle  of 
unity  by  contending  for  the  title  of  ortho- 
doxy. Each  thought  itself  right,  and  would 
put  down  the  rest.  We  have  before  the 
Reformation  no  spectacle  of  various  Chris- 
tian bodies  differing  in  faith  and  practice, 
yet  tolerant  of  one  another,  and  in  some 
sort  glad  of  one  another's  success,  as  is  the 
case  with  the  Methodist  and  the  Presby- 
terian laity  to-day.  Denominationalism  is  a 
product  of  post-Reformation  times.  Sects 
were  before  the  Reformation,  denomina- 
tions came  after. 

A  "  sect "  is,  literally,  a  cut,  a  slice.  It 
implies  out-and-out  division,  cleavage,  re- 


THE  SIN   OF  SCHISM  71 

suiting  in  the  independence  of  the  parts  sun- 
dered. The  word  -denomination"  looks 
more  to  the  superficies  of  things,  to  nomi- 
nal differences.  It  is  a  less  radical  word, 
giving  hint  of  a  mighty  substance  of  belief 
which  all  denominational  bodies  enjoy  in 
common.  Accordant  with  this  is  the 
feeling  of  all,  that  sectarianism  is  disgrace- 
ful, but  that  there  is  no  disgrace  in  being 
a  stanch  and  loyal  member  of  a  Christian 
denomination. 

The  distinction  which  I  make  between 
a  sect  and  a  denomination,  more  fully  set 
forth,  is  this,  that  while  each  admits  itself 
to  be  but  a  part  of  Christendom,  the 
denomination,  renouncing  all  wish  that 
one  denominational  organization  should 
prevail  among  God's  people,  and  viewing 
essential  church  unity  as  mainly  a  thing  of 
faith  and  of  spirit,  not  of  external  organiza- 
tion, admits  not  only  the  civil  and  human, 
but  also  the  divine  right  of  all  the  various 
Christian  parties  to  exist,  considering  each 
in  its  time  and  place  as  a  manifestation  of 
the  Divine  Spirit ;  while  the  sect,  on  the 
other  hand,  insists  that  but  one  ecclesiasti- 
cal organization  ought  to  prevail  on  earth, 
pretends   itself  alone  to  possess  the  true, 


72  CHURCH   UNITY 

authoritative  polity,  itself  alone  to  have 
the  power  of  the  keys,  and  berates  outside 
Christians  for  not  coming  within  the  safe 
fold  which  God  has  set  it  to  keep.  "  I 
am  the  Church,"  it  says,  "  and  all  the  rest 
of  you,  to  be  sure  of  God's  favor,  must 
change  base  and  come  over  and  unite 
with  me." 

In  Iris  attitude  toward  the  Greek  Church 
and  toward  Protestants,  the  Pope  is  a  sec- 
tary; yet,  aware  of  the  inconsistency  of 
assuming  for  his  portion  of  Christendom 
the  title  of  The  One  Church  and  yet  ad- 
mitting the  existence  of  other  Christians, 
he  has  always  betrayed  a  tendency  to 
ignore  the  existence  of  other  Christians 
altogether.  Catholics  in  general  are  with 
him  in  this ;  they  do  not  like  to  recognize 
Christians  who  are  not  of  their  church, 
though,  to  their  credit  be  it  said,  they 
rarely,  if  ever,  explicitly  deny  that  such 
exist. 

It  is  the  great  vice  of  denominationalism 
that  it  tends  to  lapse  into  sectarianism,  to 
ignore  the  Church's  unity,  so  leading  to 
the  sin  of  schism.  This  is  the  character- 
istic guilt  of  the  ultra-Protestant  world 
to-day,  of  Lutherans,  Baptists,  Congrega- 


777  £   SIX  OF  SCHISM  73 

tionalists,  Presbyterians,   and  Methodists. 

We  liave  a  sharp  sense  of  denomination, 
but  almost  no  sense  of  church. 

The  ordinary  denominationalist  now  has 
no  feeling  for  the  old  Catholic  Church. 
Usually  he  hates  and  despises  it.  He  re- 
members that  it  bred  Leo  X.,  but  forgets 
that  it  raised  up  Luther,  Calvin,  and  Knox. 
I  know  of  no  sadder  mistaking  of  history 
than  that  involved  in  current  Protestant 
notions  of  what  the  Church  was  and  was 
doing  in  the  years  before  Luther.  Doubt- 
less very  grave  evils  prevailed  then,  more 
in  church  administration  than  in  the  lives 
of  Christian  people,  and  far  more  in  con- 
nection with  the  Papal  See  than  in  church 
administration  at  large.  Yet,  with  all  its 
errors,  that  old  Church  was  God's  Church, 
and  the  net  influence  of  it  was  not  evil, 
but  gloriously  good.  Its  doctrines  were 
in  the  main  biblical  and  reasonable.  It 
taught  the  unity  of  God,  the  person  and 
work  of  Christ,  the  power  of  the  atone- 
ment, man's  guilt  and  man's  hope.  These 
truths  were  not  only  held  creedwise ;  they 
were  preached,  by  earnest  men  and  with 
saving  effect.  The  Reformation  brought 
to    the    parts    of    Christendom   which   it 


74  CHURCH   UNITY 

affected  immense  advance  in  all  these 
respects ;  still  it  is  very  easy,  as  it  is  very 
usual,  to  underrate  the  evangelical  excel- 
lence of  the  church  in  which  Luther  had 
his  spiritual  birth. 

Nor  did  the  reformers  export  from  that 
old  Church  all  the  good  it  contained.  Men 
as  holy  as  they  preferred  to  remain  in  it ; 
men  as  holy  as  they  have  been  in  the  old 
establishment  ever  since.  I  am  strong 
Protestant  enough  not  to  be  afraid  to  admit 
that  there  are  at  this  moment  multitudes 
of  true  and  faithful  Christians  in  the 
Romish  communion.  It  is  part  of  that 
Holy  Catholic  Church  in  which  we  all 
believe.  I  would  speak  and  think  respect- 
fully even  of  the  Pope.  He  is  head  pastor 
of  one  of  the  oldest,  noblest,  and  most  use- 
ful congregations  on  earth,  the  one  to  which 
St.  Paul  directed  the  epistle  reproduced  in 
our  Bibles.  We  may  duly  abominate  the 
papal  system  and  the  papal  claims  without 
calling  the  Pope  Antichrist  or  unchurching 
the  hosts  of  Christians  who  see  in  his  hands 
the  keys  of  St.  Peter. 

Many  Protestants  commit  the  sin  of 
schism  in  the  attitude  they  assume  toward 
one  another.     The  great  bodies  of  Protes- 


THE  SIN  OF  SCHISM  75 

tant  people  are  mutually  friendly  enough. 
Most  of  us,  when  we  as  individuals  pray 
for  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  have  before 
our  minds  a  most  inclusive  thought.  We 
take  into  our  affections  Catholic  and  Greek, 
Lutheran,  Anglican,  and  Presbyterian,  Bap- 
tist, Methodist,  Quaker,  Plymouth  Brother, 
and  Soldier  of  the  Salvation  Army;  and 
probably  no  one  of  us,  in  such  a  prayer, 
ever  entertains  the  idea  that  these  fellow 
Christians,  to  be  blessed  as  we  pray,  must 
adopt  this  or  that  ecclesiastical  costume. 

But  no  way  has  yet  been  found  to  rea- 
lize this  splendid  width  of  charity  in  church 
practice.  Our  ecclesiastical  machinery  for- 
bids. It  is  too  stiff.  Church  officials  almost 
always  manifest  a  sectarian  consciousness. 
In  its  administration,  direction,  and  public 
spirit,  nearly  every  Protestant  body  is  a 
sect  rather  than  a  denomination.  Many  of 
the  laity  themselves,  however  catholic  in 
their  personal  feelings  and  thinking,  still 
regard  so  sacred  each  his  special  mode  of 
church  building,  that  they  will  plan  to 
defend  and  bolster  it  even  when  souls  are 
visibly  perishing  in  consequence  of  such 
narrowness.  The  Pope  is  not  a  whit  stirrer 
in  this  than  thoughtless  Protestants  are. 


76  CHURCII  UNITY 

Forgetting  that  under  any  one's  theory 
church  polity  is  naught  but  a  means,  good 
people  in  effect  make  it  an  end.  That  is 
the  sectary's  fallacy. 

Very  strong  denominational  feeling  al- 
ways tends  to  become  sectarian.  While,  as 
has  been  said,  the  laymen  of  the  Christian 
world  are  usually  not  so,  church  officials 
are  very  commonly  sectarian  in  thought 
and  speech.  Nearly  all  our  Protestant  re- 
ligious newspapers  speak  as  the  organs  of 
sects  rather  than  of  denominations.  Each 
claims  for  its  party  in  some  sense  the  power 
of  the  keys.  I  am  acquainted  with  minis- 
ters whose  glee  would  be  keener  at  wel- 
coming into  their  churches  Christians  of 
other  names  than  if  they  were  permitted 
to  baptise  so  many  heathen.  Communities 
are  not  rare  in  this  land  where  competi- 
tion is  far  sharper  between  the  different 
denominations  than  between  Christ's  king- 
dom and  Satan's. 

Of  course,  so  long  and  so  far  as  this 
spirit  prevails,  denominations  have  no 
chance  to  come  by  any  better  understand- 
ing of  one  another's  grounds  for  their 
peculiar  contentions  than  they  now  have  ; 
no  opportunity,  should  any  of  these  grounds 


THE  SIN  OF  SCHISM  77 

lose  force  owing  to  lapse  of  time  or  change 
of  circumstances,  to  see  this,  so  that  divi- 
sions might  cease  when  no  longer  called 
for. 

It  seems  to  be  the  common  view  that  a 
denomination,  in  order  to  promote  to  the 
utmost  its  peculiar  tenets,  must  separate 
itself  as  completely  as  possible  from  all  who 
reject  these   tenets.      That  is,   if   certain 
Christian  people  entertain  what  you  call 
errors,  you  cannot  duly  testify  against  those 
errors  without  excluding  those  people  from 
your  church.     To  my  mind  this  is  wholly 
wrong.    The  logic  of  it  is  that  to  influence 
men  with  my  truth  I  must  put  them  as  far 
as  possible  away  from  me.     Nothing  could 
be  more  senseless.     Of  what  use,  in  a  con- 
gregation where  all  believe  in  it,  is  a  ser- 
mon, for  instance,  on  immersion  ?   Were  we 
nearer  together,  more  mixed  up,  as  it  were, 
such  a  shot  would  find  its  mark.    The  crisp 
cleavage  between   denominations  involves 
a  double  disadvantage.    Important  special- 
ties in  faith  remain  too  much  without  in- 
fluence, and  pernicious  oddities  too  much 
without  rebuke.      Of  course   "birds  of  a 
feather  will  flock  together."     Those  who 
agree  in  belief  will  ever  tend  to  affiliate. 


78  CHURCH   UNITY 

Let  them  do  so  by  all  means.  But  they 
need  not  be  bulkheaded  off  from  others. 
We  have  sets  and  stripes  in  our  American 
society,  but  as  yet,  thank  God,  no  castes. 
So  should  it  be  in  religious  organization. 

Sectarianism  is  to  blame  for  it  that  we  do 
mot  have  better  union,  direction,  and  sys- 
tem in  city  evangelization,  in  religious 
effort  for  country  communities,  and  in 
planting  Christianity  on  our  Western  fron- 
tier. To  our  shame  be  it  said,  the  utmost 
cross  purposes  and  confusion  prevail  in 
these  fields.  Throughout  the  work  of 
Protestant  churches  there  is  almost  total 
lack  of  co-ordination,  hardly  a  trace  of 
that  order  and  economy  which  enable  the 
Romanists  to  accomplish  such  wonders 
with  their  slender  resources.  In  cities, 
numerous  powerful  congregations  huddle 
together  where  one  of  them  could  do  as 
much  good  as  all  do  now.  Eveiy  mission 
field  in  a  wealthy  neighborhood  is  fought 
for  by  a  half  score  of  denominations,  while 
the  dives  and  slums  are  neglected  about  in 
proportion  to  their  need.  In  each  country 
town  two,  four,  six,  sometimes  eight  or  ten 
apologies  for  churches  try  to  live  where  one 
strong  one  would  suffice ;  where,  moreover, 


THE  SIN  OF  SCHISM  79 

such  strong  church  could  easily  be  built  up 
by  combination  of  effort,  and  where,  being 
erected,  it  would  have  ten  times  the  saving 
power  which  all  the  weaklings  at  present 
exert. 

In  almost  any  of  the  rising  towns  of  the 
West  you  may  see  a  sight  winch  Christen- 
dom entire  ought  not  to  show,  —  from  half 
a  dozen  to  a  dozen  struggling  churches, 
with  under-fed  ministers,  inadequate  ac- 
commodations, and  a  discouraging  outlook 
every  way,  much  of  such  meagre  support 
as  they  do  receive  coming  from  the  East, 
not  one  among  them  powerful  or  promis- 
ing enough  to  entice  the  lukewarm  or  to 
make  evil-doers  reflect.  Christians  moving 
to  the  place,  seeing  the  financial  burden  it 
must  entail  to  join  any  of  the  churches,  re- 
main churchless ;  while  the  unbeliever,  who 
would  under  other  circumstances  at  least 
send  his  children  to  Sunday  School  and 
occasionally  go  to  church  himself,  lapses 
into  heathenism  with  all  his  house. 

Many,  if  not  most,  of  our  poorer  rural 
and  frontier  communities  are  threatened 
with  desperate  apathy  touching  religion ;  a 
practical  infidelity,  carrying  with  it  the 
grossest  immoralities.   In  many  parts  these 


80  CnURCU   UNITY 

evils  are  already  realized.  No  centralized 
embodiment  of  spiritual  force,  like  "  The 
Church  "  of  the  middle  ages,  is  available  for 
combating  them.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
the  expression,  "  The  Church,"  has,  to  the 
ordinary  man  of  the  world,  any  meaning 
whatever.  If  he  frames  a  thought  corre- 
sponding with  it,  he  probably  thinks  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  which,  if  he  is  not 
a  Catholic,  awakens  in  him  no  veneration, 
lays  upon  his  conscience  no  restraint,  no 
commandment. 

Yet,  in  the  face  of  the  perils  referred  to, 
religious  teachers,  each  in  his  little  patch 
of  the  Lord's  vineyard,  serenely  go  on,  in- 
culcating the  old  divisive  church  polity, 
unfortunately  having  influence  enough  to 
continue  the  anarchy,  and  even  to  invest 
it,  in  the  minds  of  many  excellent  Chris- 
tians, with  a  sort  of  sacredness.  Nine 
tenths  of  the  good  people  thus  preventing 
each  other  from  religious  usefulness  no 
doubt  surmise  their  error,  and  might  easily 
be  led  to  act  differently;  but,  not  being 
experts  in  theology,  they  suppose  their 
present  course  somehow  right  because  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  over  them  approve 
it,  particularly  as,  by  sedulous  begging  in 


THE  s/.\  OF  SCHIBM  81 

remote  places,  where  the  state  of  affairs  is 
not  known,  those  authorities  manage  to 
provide  them  with  goodly  sums  of  money 
to  sink.  It  is  by  this  flagitious  anarchy 
that  Protestants  continually  play  into  the 
hands  of  the  Catholic  Church.  We  shall 
have  increasing  cause  to  dread  papal  su- 
premacy in  America  so  long  as  our  religious 
resources  are  thus  foolishly  and  criminally 
frittered  away.  Were  denominations  less 
far  apart,  this  evil  would  not  be.  Nothing 
is  responsible  for  it  but  our  painful  prefer- 
ence of  Shibboleth  to  salvation.  Our 
foreign  missionaries  have  set  us  a  noble 
example  in  this  matter.  They  parcel  out 
the  field,  and  no  man  builds  on  another's 
foundation.  We  shall  one  day  learn  the 
same  wisdom  at  home. 

This  persistent  idea  of  the  power  of  the 
keys  at  first  seems  hard  to  understand. 
It  goes  back,  however,  to  the  notion  of 
a  divine  ecclesiastical  legitimacy.  Most 
Protestants  are  of  the  opinion,  or  at  least 
have  been  until  recently,  that  Clrrist,  in 
the  New  Testament,  ordains  a  given  fixed 
ecclesiastical  polity  for  all  time.  The 
Papists,  and,  in  part,  the  Episcopalians, 
locate  the  divine  authority  for  their  polity 
0 


82  CHURCH   UNITY 

in  the  Church,  somewhat  independently 
of  Scripture.  Of  course,  if  there  is  com- 
mitted to  us  any  definite  polity  prescribed 
in  perpetuity,  with  the  seal  of  divine  au- 
thority upon  it,  then  we  must  maintain 
that  polity  at  whatever  cost.  We  must 
cling  to  it  ourselves ;  we  must  fight  for  it 
against  those  trying  to  subvert  it.  Any 
church,  any  sect  supposing  itself  in  pos- 
session of  a  divinely  ordained  form  of 
church  building,  cannot  do  otherwise  than 
maintain  such,  though  it  should  seem  to 
work,  though  it  should  confessedly  and 
certainly  work  divisively  in  Christendom. 
Upon  that  theoiy  we  should  have  to  say, 
"  God's  will  be  done,"  though  the  results 
at  present,  to  all  human  appearance,  are 
the  reverse  of  helpful  to  the  progress  of 
Iris  kingdom.  He  knows  best,  and  who 
are  we  that  our  finite  judgments  should  pre- 
sume to  dictate  to  infinite  wisdom?  If 
your  polity  can  be  shown  to  be  divinely 
legitimate,  you,  of  course,  have  the  power 
of  the  keys ;  and  you  have  no  option  but 
to  assert  and  maintain  that  power  against 
all  comers.  Here  is  the  heart  of  our 
difficulty. 

For  my  part  I  deny,  root  and  branch,  the 


TTIE  SIX   OF  SCHISM  83 

doctrine  of  a  primordial  ecclesiastical  legiti- 
macy. No  special  form  of  polity  is  pre- 
scribed in  the  New  Testament.  In  the 
New  Testament  as  a  whole,  no  special 
form  is  exemplified.  Germs  of  all  forms 
a  iv  there,  but  no  one  is  carried  through  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  others.  In  the  group 
of  bishop-elders  with  which  every  New 
Testament  church,  however  small,  is  fitted 
out,  you  have  the  presbytery.  The  church 
of  Jerusalem,  of  Antioch,  of  Corinth,  or 
of  Rome  at  the  time  of  Paul's  death, — 
the  one  church  in  each  of  these  cities  com- 
prising numerous  congregations,  and  the 
board  of  bishop-elders  in  each  probably 
having  by  this  time  a  more  or  less  perma- 
nent chairman,  —  gives  you  a  picture  of  an 
Episcopalian  diocese.  Throughout  the  Asi- 
atic circle  all  the  churches  recognize  a 
centre  of  paramount  authority  in  the  church 
at  Jerusalem,  which  church,  on  occasion, 
assumes  to  issue  dogmata,  or  authoritative 
prescriptions,  which  all  are  to  keep.  In 
this  department  of  primitive  Christendom, 
moreover,  James,  who  is  neither  bishop 
nor  elder,  whose  name  is  also  an  official 
title,  almost  like  Caesar's,  has  something 
the  authority  of  a  pope.     In  the  Pauline 


84  CIIURCn  UNITY 

or  European  circle,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
the  first  age  of  Christianity,  all  the  churches 
are  independent  of  one  another,  like  Bap- 
tist and  Congregational  churches  to-day ; 
and  the  dogmata  issued  at  Jerusalem,  though 
exactly  fitting  difficulties  that  arose  in  the 
church  at  Corinth,  are  unknown  or  ignored 
by  the  apostle  when  treating  of  those 
difficulties. 

There  is  no  ground  whatever  in  Scrip- 
tural precept  or  example  for  asserting  any 
form  of  polity  as  particularly  legitimate. 
The  Romanist  is  correct  in  alleging  that 
authority  has  been  lodged  in  the  Church 
to  work  out  its  own  polity ;  but  he  has  no 
right  to  say  that  his  one  department  of  the 
Church  is  a  law,  or  can  give  law,  to  all 
Christendom.  His  church  constitution 
is  good  for  him,  no  doubt ;  it  is  good, 
and  any  form  of  polity  is  good,  so  far  as  it 
works  well.  The  note  of  church  legiti- 
macy is  doing  church  work.  Any  organi- 
zation bearing  this  mark,  however  imperfect 
its  means,  however  humble  its  aspect,  is 
a  legitimate  part  of  the  one  Church,  and 
must  not  be  despised. 

The  great  demand  of  religion  in  the 
Protestant  world  to-day  is  that  the  Chris- 


THE  SIN   OF  SCHISM  85 

tian  denominations  should  entirely  cease 
claiming  the  power  of  the  keys  ;  leave  off 
being  sects,  and  come  up  to  their  ideal  as 
only  so  many  facets  of  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church.  I  do  not  say  that  this  renewed 
sense  of  church  is  all  that  is  needed  in  the 
direction  of  church  unity.  I  allege  only 
that  this  is  our  prime  and  generic  necessity. 
Denominational  federation,  or  the  exten- 
sion of  the  historic  episcopate,  may  follow ; 
nay,  something  in  the  way  of  fuller  organi- 
zation will  be  sure  to  follow.  But  it  is 
useless  to  attempt  reform  in  external  or- 
ganization among  the  churches  till  a 
healthy  ecclesiastical  consciousness  is  born 
again.  Christendom  needs  once  more  the 
old  sense  of  love  for  all  God's  people  by 
all  God's  people.  We  are  not  enemies, 
but  friends.  What  unites  us  is  far  more 
important  than  what  divides. 

Nor  is  there  necessarily  any  incompati- 
bility between  the  fact  of  denominations 
and  the  sense  of  catholicity.  I  would  not 
have  denominations  cease  to  be  ;  an  at- 
tempt to  abolish  them  were  equally  foolish 
and  vain.  But  I  would  have  each  see  it- 
self in  its  right  relations  to  the  rest,  lay 
aside  all  arrogance  and  sense  of  superior- 


86  CHURCH   UNITY 

ity;  in  a  word,  all  claim  to  the  power  of 
the  keys,  recognizing  the  rest,  more  than 
we  do,  as  allies,  that  we  might  toil  in  a 
more  united  way  than  now  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  God's  kingdom  amonsr  men. 

To  see  how  possible  it  would  be  to  pre- 
serve denominations  in  all  their  useful 
meaning,  yet  all  of  them  renouncing  the 
power  of  the  keys,  we  have  only  to  gen- 
eralize in  thought  what  goes  on  in  every 
religious  organization,  however  diminu- 
tive, to-day.  Each  of  them  has  its  high 
church,  low  church,  and  broad  church 
party,  its  progressive  and  its  conservative 
tendency.  In  one  congregation  nearly  all 
are  advanced  thinkers;  in  another  almost 
all  fear  and  deprecate  innovation.  One 
runs  to  ritual;  another  subordinates  or 
abhors  ritual.  In  a  community  of  size, 
containing  several  congregations  of  the 
same  faith  and  order,  these  likes  and  dis- 
likes get  themselves  humored  by  a  natural 
process  of  grouping.  Harmony  is  easy 
then.  But  even  in  smaller  places,  where 
people  of  divergent  tastes  form  one  con- 
gregation, though  they  may  debate  and 
strive,  each  stripe  trying  to  impart  its 
color   to   the   whole,   such  rivalry  hardly 


THE  SIN  OF  SCHISM  87 

ever  passes  the  limit  of  health  or  leads  to 
division.  Even  when  the  tension  is  ex- 
treme and  one  section  or  "another  secedes, 
the  seceders  hardly  ever  presume  to  origi- 
nate a  new  sect.  The  separation  leads 
neither  side  to  unchurch  the  other.  If 
they  were  Lutherans  before,  both  are 
Lutherans  still ;  if  Disciples,  Disciples ; 
if  Baptists,  Baptists ;  and  so  on.  What 
reason  is  there,  I  ask,  but  the  pride  and 
folly  of  good  men,  why  this  fraternal  shad- 
ing and  grouping  of  Christian  bodies 
should  not  extend  throughout  Christen- 
dom ?  We  easily  generalize  it  in  thought ; 
why  may  it  not  be  made  general  in  fact  ? 

To  see  in  another  way  that  this  is  a 
distinct  possibility  one  need  only  recur  to 
the  time  in  the  old  Catholic  Church  be- 
fore the  papacy  acquired  its  supremacy, 
say  in  the  days  of  Cyprian.  Then  the 
sense  of  church,  of  catholicity,  was  as 
high  as  it  has  ever  been,  wdiile  every  bish- 
opric claimed  the  right  to  act  and  grow 
in  its  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  author- 
ity of  general  councils.  Let  us  suppose 
that  this  order  of  things  had  continued 
and  developed,  and  that  councils  had  al- 
ways  declined   to  assume   authority  save 


88  CI1URCII   UNITY 

in  absolutely  fundamental  matters  of  faith. 
All  peculiarities  of  belief,  of  practice,  and 
of  polity  would  then  have  been  free 
to  work  themselves  out.  After  a  time, 
hardly  two  congregations  would  have 
agreed  in  all  things.  National  and  local 
churches  would  have  had  their  dissi- 
dencies  of  view,  just  as  they  have  had. 
There  would  have  been  parties  and  tend- 
encies of  all  sorts.  Calvinism  when  it 
came  would  have  had  its  champions  and 
its  opponents,  each  side  free  to  say  its 
last  word.  When  diversities  of  belief 
and  practice  grew  too  tense  in  any  local 
church  some  would  freely  withdraw  to 
cast  in  their  lot  elsewhere.  Here  would 
be  a  congregation  of  ritualists,  yonder 
one  worshipping  like  Quakers  or  the  Ply- 
mouth Brethren.  Every  biblical  truth, 
every  extreme,  every  folly,  every  error, 
even,  would  be  represented  somewhere. 
Yet  nowhere  would  there  be  exclusion. 
Extremes  of  view  and  of  organization 
would  shade  off  gradually,  and  you  would 
seek  in  vain  for  any  of  that  crisp  cleavage 
of  party  from  party  which  characterizes 
sects.  No  section  or  tendency  would 
claim  to  be  the  Church.     No  man  would 


THE  SIX  OF  SCUISM  89 

unchurch  another.  No  church  dignitary 
would  pretend,  in  the  pupal  sense,  to  bind 
or  to  loose. 

Some  model  like  this,  it  seems  to  me, 
oucrht  denominationalism  to  hold  before 
itself,  as  the  goal  for  its  advance.  To  a 
goodly  extent  we  realize  it  already,  and  if 
the  great  commonalty  of  Protestant  Chris- 
tians were  free  to  act  out  its  best  spirit 
we  should  realize  it  perfectly.  But  there 
still  remains  in  the  government  of  all 
denominations  a  certain  thought  of  author- 
ity, an  unvoiced  but  potent  claim  to  the 
power  of  the  keys,  an  unclear  yet  positive 
assumption  of  special  ecclesiastical  legiti- 
macy, winch  makes  impossible  that  useful 
harmony  and  co-operation  which  but  for 
tins  we  could  so  easily  effect.  More  than 
for  all  else  do  I  blame  Rome  for  ending 
that  beautiful  old  ecclesiastical  develop- 
ment to  which  I  have  alluded,  introducing 
the  exercise  of  ecclesiastical  power,  and 
so  familiarizing  the  Church  with  it  that 
no  denomination  yet,  however  ultra  its 
Protestantism,  has  felt  free  to  renounce 
the  assumption  of  it. 

I  believe,  no  less  than  a  papist,  in  the 
organic  unity  of   God's   people ;  for  faith 


90  CIIURCn  UNITY 

organically  connects  all  who  possess  it 
into  one  vital  body.  But  this  organic 
unity  need  not  carry  with  it  any  particular 
machinery  of  ecclesiastical  organization. 
External  organization  is  a  different,  a  much 
coarser  thing.  For  my  part,  I  repudiate 
utterly  the  notion  that  the  unity  which  our 
Lord  prayed  for  on  behalf  of  his  Church 
is  primarily  unity  in  external,  visible 
organization.  Such  unity  is  not  the  main 
matter,  not  the  most  necessary,  not  the 
most  desirable  attainment.  What  we  need 
first  and  most  is  unity  of  spirit  in  the  bond 
of  peace. 

Church  organization  is  important,  in  some 
ages  all-important.  Every  church  polity 
that  ever  existed,  the  papal  system  included, 
has  had,  or  still  has,  its  relative  justification. 
It  is  with  polities  as  with  doctrinal  state- 
ments. All  of  them  that  have  ever  found 
currency  anywhere  in  the  Church  had  in 
their  time  and  place  some  measure  of  truth, 
some  sort  of  propriety.  They  were  the 
natural  and  inevitable  results  springing 
from  the  operation  of  Christian  truth  upon 
men's  minds  so  and  so  educated,  developed, 
and  influenced. 

But  Christian  humanity,  like  all  human-   1 


THE  SIN  OF  SCHISM  91 

it}r,  "sweeps  onward,"  and  governments 
and  creeds  which  once  were  the  best  pos- 

Vsible  expression  of  divine  faith  t^ecome 
outworn  and  ugcflfllfc  hi  EKe  advance,  one 
division  of  the  faithful  will  be  the  first  to 
spy  out  a  new  truth,  another  will  do  equal 
good  by  tenaciously  holding  on  to  some 
rubric  which  the  rest  were  too  ready  to 
dismiss.  Each  will  of  coarse  be  strenuous 
for  the  aspects  of  truth  which  most  separate 
it  from  the  rest,  but  not  one  will  have  any 
right  to  call  itself  pre-eminently  the  Church 
of  God,  whether  in  polity  or  in  doctrine. 
If  any  does  so,  if  any  excludes  its  neighbor, 
saying :  You  neglect  tins  or  that  important 
item  of  belief,  therefore  you  are  not  of  the 
Church;  if  any  in  any  way  claims  the 
power  of  the  keys,  we  shall  look  upon  such 
assumption  precisely  as  we  do  upon  that  of 
the  Pope,  as  insufferable  arrogance,  proof 
that  the  perfect  vision  of  Christ's  mind  has 
not  yet  come  to  all. 

The  renunciation  of  sectarianism  is,  then, 
the  first  and  great  duty  of  the  Church  in 
view  of  its  dividedness.  A  correct  idea  and 
feeling  must  be  built  up  touching  the 
meaning  of  "  church."  If  this  cannot  be 
effected,  all  effort  will  be  vain.     So  long 


92  CHURCIl   UNITY 

as  any  party  of  Christians  says,  —  "  We 
practise  so  and  so,  and  are  therefore  pre- 
eminently the  Church ;  we  are  the  Chnrch 
and  you  are  not,"  —  scorning  or  patronizing 
others  who  produce  all  the  fruits  of  the 
spirit ;  —  so  long  must  the  reunion  of  Chris- 
tendom wait.  Even  were  it  known  that 
the  episcopate  would  prove  the  church  uni- 
fying force  which  so  many  hope,  churchmen 
would  not  on  that  account  be  justified  in 
calling  themselves  the  Church  par  excel- 
lence* Speaking  generally,  no  denomina- 
tions are  at  this  moment  to  be  reprehended 
for  existing  apart.  If  a  few  are  to-day  in 
fault  for  this,  very  few,  certainly,  were  to 
blame  for  coming  into  existence  in  the  first 
place.  Nearly  every  rent  in  the  Church 
has  occurred  for  good  conscience'  sake,  a 
new  party  forming  because  the  old  body 
was  too  arrogant.  Any  thought  about  the 
reunion  of  Christendom  which  expects  it 
to  occur  by  come-outers'  retracing  their 
steps  is  wholly  fatuous.  We  shall  never 
arrive  at  unity  by  arbitrarily  suppressing 
the  peculiarities  of  this  or  that  denomina- 
tion. If  Catholicity  is  ever  to  return  to 
the  Church,  it  will  have  to  be  vastly  larger 
and  more  comprehensive  than  ever  existed 


THE  SIN   OF  SCHISM  93 

before.  It  must  be  immense  enough  to 
include  us  nil,  pretty  much  as  we  are.  It 
will  have  to  consist  mainly  in  a  new  spirit, 
as  I  have  said;  in  the  better  way  in  which 
we  shall  regard,  approach,  and  help  one 
another. 

As  it  is  not  possible,  so  neither  is  it  neces- 
sary or  desirable  that  the  various  denomina- 
tions should  merge  into  a  homogeneous 
bod}\  All  need  not  teach  the  same  views 
concerning  either  doctrine  or  polity.  What 
is  needed  is*that  all  church  people  as  such 
should  come  to  believe  —  effectively  — 
what  nearly  all  even  now  privately  ac- 
knowledge, that  polity  is  good  for  nothing 
save  as  an  instrument  in  the  Church's  saving 
work;  that  church  orders  and  ordinances 
were  made  for  men,  not  men  for  them. 
Let  this  truth  be  taken  up  into  Christian 
teaching  everywhere,  and  the  Christian 
love  in  good  men's  hearts  will  spontane- 
ously prompt  them,  whenever  the  two 
interests  clash,  to  subordinate  mere  matters 
of  polity  to  the  promotion  of  truth,  the 
salvation  of  wicked  men,  and  the  edifica- 
tion of  good  men. 

A  main  reason  why  proper  catholicity 
in  feeling  is  so  desirable  is  that  it  would 


94  CHURCH   UNITY 

bring  certain  needed  changes  in  churches' 
external  relations.  We  see  this  in  the 
pleasing  fact  that  no  sooner  does  the  need 
of  church  unity  begin  to  be  earnestly 
discussed  than  you  have  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association,  the  Evangelical 
Alliance,  with  the  local  denominational 
alliances  to  which  it  is  now  happily  giving 
birth,  the  Grindelwald  Conference,  origin- 
ated and  inspired  by  Dr.  Lunn,  the  great 
Society  of  Christian  Endeavorers,  and  a 
thousand  other  forms  of  interdenomina- 
tional co-operation,  reciprocity,  and  comity 
which  recently  did  not  exist.  This  move- 
ment will  be  extended  further. 

A  plan  so  simple  that  it  has  occurred 
even  to  me  would,  if  carried  out,  as  it  has 
begun  to  be,  annul  many  baneful  results 
of  present  schism. 

Let  the  denominations  represented  in 
any  State  each  elect  one  well-known  min- 
ister and  one  well-known  layman  to  serve 
with  similar  officers  from  the  other  denom- 
inations, upon  a  State  Advisory  Church 
Advancement  Committee.  Let  this  com- 
mittee diligently  look  over  the  newest 
fields  and  publish  opinions  like  the  fol- 
lowing:   In   our    judgment   the   religious 


THE  SIX   OF  SCHISM  95 

welfare  of  Beatifica,  in  the  county  of 
Gaudium,  requires  that  for  the  present 
all  Christian  residents  in  the  place  assist 
the  Methodists,  the  Methodists  there  hav- 
ing gotten  the  strongest  foothold.  In 
our  judgment,  the  religious  welfare  of 
Gloriana,  the  rapidly  growing  shire  town 
of  Excelsior  County,  demands  that  all 
shall  aid  the  Presbyterians  of  the  place. 
And  so  on.  In  due  time  churches  of 
other  faiths  could  be  approbated  in  these 
same  localities.  All  would  be  informal, 
unauthoritative,  non-compulsory,  the  sys- 
tem acting  by  moral  force  and  public  senti- 
ment alone. 

What  would  be  the  result  of  such  a 
policy  ?  Instead  of  many  spindling  plants, 
each  town  would  soon  have  at  least  one 
strong  church,  with  an  able  ministry,  a 
flourishing  Sunday  School,  good  music, 
and  desirable  accommodations  of  every 
kind.  Cold  Christians  and  the  worldly 
would  be  attracted,  unbelief  would  be 
matched,  and  the  kingdom  of  God  would 
grow  apace.  I  am  not  without  hope  of 
living  to  see  this  scheme  in  happy  exer- 
cise over  considerable  territory.  If  I  die 
without  the  sight,  some  of  you  will  not. 


9G  CHURCH   UNITY 

Denominations  will  still  stand,  and  each 
have  an  even  better  chance  than  now  to 
show  what  grace  is  in  it ;  but,  in  case  the 
response  becomes  general,  feeble,  dying 
churches  will  be  far  less  numerous  in  our 
hamlets  and  border  settlements  ;  city  con- 
gregations will  cease  to  crowd  each  other ; 
co-operation  will  supplant  anarchy;  all 
missionary  fields  will  be  cultivated  up  to 
the  limit  of  the  resources  of  the  total 
church ;  immense  economies  in  the  way 
of  theological  teaching,  and  missionary, 
educational,  and  philanthropic  machinery 
will  be  introduced;  and  the  golden  age 
of  perfected  humanity  be  hastened  in  a 
thousand  ways. 

After  all  this  is  done,  however,  much 
will  probably  remain  undone.  Certain 
real  modifications  of  church  organization 
will  no  doubt  ultimately  be  required  to 
give  the  coming  catholicity  practical  effect. 
Mere  correct  feeling,  theory,  and  doctrine, 
with  comity  and  casual  co-operation,  will 
not  suffice.  The  spirit  of  comprehension 
must  and  will  create  itself  organs  where- 
by to  act  upon  the  world. 

However,  touching  the  changes  needed 
by  the  Church  in  its  essential  constitution, 


Till:  SIN   OF  SCHISM  97 

many  intelligent  writers  seem  to  me  to  ex- 
press themselves  rashly.  All  have  read 
utterances  to  the  effect  that  one  sole  ex- 
ternal church  organization  ought  to  have 
absolutely  ecumenical  application.  I  can- 
not view  it  so.  The  United  States  need 
not  be  bound  together  with  Europe  in 
church  organization.  The  spirit  of  true 
catholicity  must  of  course  reach  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth;  but  nothing  is  to  be 
gained,  and  perhaps  much  would  be  lost, 
by  placing  the  whole  Christian  earth  under 
one  ecclesiastical  government,  however  sim- 
ple and  unauthoritative.  Nor  is  it  neces- 
sary that  your  outer  regime  should  be  strin- 
gently universal  even  within  a  given  land 
or  State.  If  the  visible  union  involves  the 
great  majority  of  Christians  ;  if  it  is  only 
comprehensive  enough  to  give  the  word 
"  Church  "  a  clear  and  emphatic  meaning 
in  the  minds  of  all ;  powerful  enough  to 
form  a  hold  for  Christian  thought  and  to 
organize  Christian  work,  —  then  a  thin 
fringe  of  schismatic  growth  about  the  great 
ecclesiastical  field  can  occasion  no  harm. 
I  feel  that  distinct  provision  should  be  made 
for  a  liberty  like  this ;  for  there  will  always 
be  some  whom  the  general  church  adminis- 

7 


98  CHURCH  UNITY 

tration  will  not  please ;  who,  therefore, 
may  wish  to  stand  outside  it  for  a  time 
or  permanently.  No  constraint  must  be 
applied  to  such  to  make  them  conform. 
Were  the  reunion  of  Christendom  to  cost 
any  impairment  of  religious  liberty,  most  of 
us  would  prefer  that  it  should  not  come. 

Another  observation  helps  show  that  the 
task  of  absolutely  necessary  unification  in 
church  externals  is  less  impossible  than  it 
at  first  seems.  While  nearly  every  denomi- 
nation in  Christendom  was  justified  in  be- 
ginning to  be,  time  has  in  many  directions 
so  far  removed  denominational  differences 
that  nothing  but  tradition  now  prevents 
fusion.  The  Baptists  and  the  Free  Bap- 
tists well  illustrate  this.  There  is  no  longer 
any  propriety  whatever  in  their  apartness. 
The  regular  Baptists  are  no  longer  exclu- 
sively Calvinistic,  nor  do  they  uniformly 
practise  or  insist  upon  close  communion. 
These  two  bodies  could  blend  without  the 
slightest  surrender  or  sacrifice  on  the  part 
of  either,  and  with  the  greatest  blessing 
to  both.  Little  if  any  higher  is  the  fence 
between  Baptists  and  Congregationalists. 
Both  have  the  same  doctrines  and  the  same 
polity.      Nothing   separates    them   except 


THE  SIN  OF  SCHISM  <)\) 

differences  as  to  the  form,  and,  in  part, 
as  to  the  subjects  of  baptism.  But  these 
differences  did  not  at  first  or  for  a  long 
time  divide  them,  and  have  never,  to  this 
day,  caused  the  entire  separation  of  the 
two  bodies  in  Great  Britain.  Likely 
enough,  were  these  denominations  to  unite, 
many  a  congregation  would  be  made  up 
mainly  of  immersionists,  many  another 
mainly  of  non-immersionists,  just  as  now 
within  the  Baptist  denomination  particular 
congregations  vary  greatly  from  one  an- 
other in  their  thought  and  practice  about 
communion.  Some  friction  would  natur- 
ally arise  from  these  diverse  procedures, 
but  the  danger  from  this  source  is  cer- 
tainly not  sufficient  to  justify  in  this  age 
the  out-and-out  duality  of  two  Christian 
bodies  so  closely  akin  to  one  another. 

This  union  being  effected,  there  would 
be  beautiful  hope  of  coalescence  between 
the  body  thus  formed  and  the  Presbyteri- 
ans. The  notion  of  presbytery  is  not 
strange  to  Congregationalists  or  to  Bap- 
tists. Those  who  wish  episcopacy  gen- 
eralized lay  stress  upon  its  early  origin 
and  very  wide  prevalence  in  the  Church. 
But  the  presbyter  is  at  once  a  more  an- 


100  CHURCH  UNITY 

cient  and  a  more  ubiquitous  functionary 
than  the  bishop  in  the  Episcopalian  sense  of 
that  word.  The  only  important  separatrix 
between  Congregationalists  and  Baptists 
on  the  one  hand  and  Presbyterians  on  the 
other,  regards  the  authority  of  the  general 
body  over  the  particular  congregation.  But 
even  here  the  difference  is  much  less  wide 
than  it  seems,  since  both  Baptists  and  Con- 
gregationalists have  for  many  years  been 
developing  a  central  power  which  in  fact, 
though  not  in  theory,  to  a  great  extent 
commands  the  particular  churches. 

There  would  thus  be  formed  an  im- 
mense presbytero-Congregational  ecclesias- 
ticism  standing  face  to  face  with  a  mighty 
Episcopal  ecclesiasticism  made  up  of  all  the 
churches  that  are  governed  by  bishops ;  for 
these  too,  must,  in  time,  draw  together 
into  practical  working  unity.  Well,  will 
these  ecclesiasticisms  stand  apart  forever, 
or  will  further  blending  occur,  making 
one  that  colossal  twain  ?  I  am  of  opinion 
that  that  last  chasm  will  at  length  be 
closed,  and  American  Christendom  be  made 
one  indeed.  Ecclesiastical  overseership  is 
really  very  important.  Here  the  bishop's 
polity  has,  for  practical  work,  an  immense 


THE  SIN  OF  SCHISM  101 

advantage.  All  will  one  day  see  this. 
The  bishops'  churches,  knowing  it  already, 
will  be  so  anxious  for  the  generalization  of 
the  overseership  that  they  will  not  be  too 
scrupulous  about  the  manner  of  effecting 
the  consummation. 

By  and  by,  I  believe,  the  Chicago- 
Lambeth  overture  will  bear  fruit.  All  are 
acquainted  with  the  nature  of  this.  The 
Anglican  Council,  consisting  of  all  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  bishops  of  Great 
Britain,  the  British  colonies,  and  the 
United  States,  in  1888,  at  the  last  of 
the  three  meetings,  —  it  was  held  at  Lam- 
beth Palace,  London,  the  meeting  being 
attended  by  one  hundred  and  forty-live 
bishops  of  Great  Britain  and  America,  — 
adopted,  with  slight  modifications,  a  pro- 
gramme for  the  reunion  of  Christendom, 
which  had,  in  1886,  been  proposed  by  the 
House  of  Bishops  in  the  General  Conven- 
tion of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
of  the  United  States.  This  programme 
consists  of  four  articles  :  — 

"I.  The  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 

New  Testaments,  as  '  containing  all  things 
necessary  to  salvation,'  and  as  being  the  rule 
and  ultimate  standard  of  faith. 


102  CHURCH  UNITY 

"II.  The  Apostles'  Creed,  as  the  Baptis- 
mal Symbol  j  and  the  Nicene  Creed,  as  the 
sufficient  statement  of  the  Christian  faith. 

"III.  The  two  Sacraments  ordained  by 
Christ  himself, — Baptism  and  the  Supper 
of  the  Lord,  —  ministered  with  the  unfailing 
use  of  Christ's  words  of  institution,  and  of 
the  elements  ordained  by  him. 

"IV.  The  Historic  Episcopate,  locally 
adapted  in  the  methods  of  its  administration 
to  the  varying  needs  of  the  nations  and  peoples 
called  of  God  into  the  unity  of  his  Church. 

"  This  conference,"  —  so  runs  the  over- 
ture,—  "earnestly  requests  the  constituted 
authorities  of  the  various  branches  of  our 
communion,  acting,  as  far  as  may  be,  in  con- 
cert with  one  another,  to  make  it  known  that 
they  hold  themselves  in  readiness  to  enter 
into  brotherly  conference  (such  as  that  which 
has  already  been  proposed  by  the  Church  in 
the  United  States  of  America)  with  the  rep- 
resentatives of  other  Christian  communions 
in  the  English-speaking  races  in  order  to 
consider  what  steps  can  be  taken,  either 
toward  corporate  reunion,  or  toward  such 
relations  as  may  prepare  the  way  for  fuller 
organic  unity  hereafter." 

The  first  and  third  of  these  articles  are 
already  agreed  upon  by  all   Protestants; 


Tin:  SIN  OF  SCHISM  103 

while  tho  creeds  named  in  Article  II. 
might  easily  be  so  modified  as  not  to  ex- 
clude even  Unitarian  Christians.  Serious 
friction  arises  only  touching  the  episco- 
pate ;  and  at  present  this  is  serious  indeed. 
Most  non-Episcopalians  deem  the  bishops 
intent  merely  on  getting  Nonconformists 
under  their  authority,  while  many  Episco- 
palians think  the  Lambeth  proposals  a 
mistake  anyway,  and  charge  the  bishops 
who  published  them  with  recreancy  to 
church  principles.  At  any  rate,  it  is  said, 
the  bishops  must  admit  to  their  orders 
only  such  non-Episcopal  ministers  as  re- 
nounce their  non-Episcopal  ordination. 
Few  of  the  Presbyterian,  Congregational, 
or  Baptist  clergy  will  ever  do  this.  But 
a  great  many  clergymen  in  these  bodies 
stand  ready,  for  the  sake  of  promoting 
church  unity,  to  take  bishops'  orders  so 
soon  as  any  bishops  are  ready  to  ordain 
them,  with  the  understanding  that  their 
original  ordination  is  not  abjured ;  and  so 
soon,  further,  as  such  enlarged  ordination 
is  reasonably  likely  not  to  result  in  merely 
creating  a  new  denomination.  The  condi- 
tions for  this  momentous  step  toward  the 
final  church  polity  do  not  yet  exist.     The 


104  CHURCH   UNITY 

men  who  framed  the  League  of  Catholic 
Unity  know  this  full  well.  Sectarianism 
is  still  too  rife.  Years,  decades  perhaps, 
must  roll  away  before  so  splendid  a  con- 
summation can  be  reached.  But  this  im- 
mense good  is  surely  in  store  for  the 
Church  because  it  is  Christ's  Church,  and 
because  Christ,  through  his  Church,  is 
pledged  to  convert  the  world  to  himself. 


Ill 


THE    IRENIC    MOVEMENTS    SINCE 
THE   REFORMATION 

Br  the  Rev.  JOHN  F.  HURST,  D.D.,  LL.  D. 

Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Churchy 
Washington,  D.  C. 


THE   IRENIC    MOVEMENTS    SINCE 
THE  REFORMATION 

Y\  /"HEN  the  great  Reformation  came  to 
a  close,  the  spirit  of  controversy 
prevailed  everywhere  on  the  map  of  the 
new  Protestantism.  The  Reformed  were  in 
the  ascendency  in  Switzerland,  in  Southern 
Germany,  in  Holland  and  Scotland.  The 
Lutherans  predominated  in  Central  Ger- 
many and  in  the  Scandinavian  countries. 
The  press  teemed  with  controversial  dis- 
cussions. The  atmosphere  of  the  univer- 
sities was  lurid  with  the  violent  storm. 
Only  at  intervals  was  a  strong  word  spoken 
for  the  harmony  of  Protestantism.  Me- 
lanchthon  had  been  the  one  peaceful  spirit 
of  the  Reformation,  but  this  irenic  char- 
acter of  the  man  did  not  avail  to  calm 
the  troubled  waters  of  the  period.  The 
question  was,  How  long  must  the  Prot- 
estantism  of   the   continent  wait    for  an 


108  CHURCH   UNITY 

advocate  of  union,  and  who  should  be  the 
man? 

The  earliest  apostle  of  Christian  union 
was  George  Calixtus.  At  the  University 
of  Helmstadt,  where  he  was  professor, 
1614-1656,  he  became  imbued  with  the 
Melanchthonian  theology,  and  by  his  wide 
travels  in  England,  Holland,  Italy,  and 
France,  he  formed  a  larger  acquaintance 
with  other  churches  than  was  common  with 
either  the  Lutherans  or  Reformed  of  his 
day.  This  brought  him  to  a  breadth  of 
view  far  in  advance  of  his  time.  He  was 
an  earnest  Lutheran,  always  maintaining 
that  the  Lutheran  Church  was  the  purest 
of  all.  But  he  saw  the  transcendent  im- 
portance of  those  great  doctrines  on  which 
all  Protestants  were  agreed,  and  he  laid 
down  as  a  basis  of  Christian  union  the 
New  Testament  as  interpreted  by  the 
Church  of  the  first  five  centuries.  He 
contended  that  the  points  on  which  the 
churches  differed  were  unimportant  by  the 
side  of  the  fundamental  points  of  Chris- 
tian theology  which  they  had  inherited 
in  common  from  the  purest  ages  of  the  faith. 
The  churches  should  work  together  in 
peace  and  harmony,  paving  the  way  for  a 


IREN1C  MOVEMENTS  109 

possible  union.  Calixtus  did  not  at  first 
advocate  a  formal  union.  A  conference  for 
Christian  union  was  appointed  at  Thorn 
in  1645,  but  nothing  came  of  it  except  as 
a  wise  and  pacific  example.  The  strict 
Lutherans  opposed  him  with  intense  bitter- 
ness. He  was  called  by  some  a  Crypto- 
Calvinist,  by  others  a  secret  Papist.  It  is 
pathetic  to  read  how  the  well-meant  efforts 
of  the  Helmstadt  peacemaker  were  frus- 
trated and  denounced  by  the  vehement 
controversialists  of  that  age.  Walch  called 
him  Calixtus  Cal(vino  m)ixtus,  and  iden- 
tified him  with  the  number  of  the  beast  in 
the  Apocalypse.  It  was  a  militant  age,  and 
the  peacemaker's  role  was  not  popular.1 

The  theological  school  of  Frankfort-on- 
the-Oder  was  a  centre  of  a  peace  move- 
ment. There  it  was  that  Bergius  and 
Francus  labored  for  a  tolerant  Calvinism, 
and  spoke  many  a  noble  word  for  peace  in 
the  former  half  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
There  also  Pelargus  seconded  their  efforts, 
and  was  a  powerful  irenic   influence.     It 

i  Henke,  Georg  Calixtus  und  seine  Zeit,  Halle,  1853, 
and  art.  in  Herzog-Plitt ;  Doweling,  Life  and  Correspond- 
ence of  G.  Calixtus,  Lond.,  1863;  Gieseler,  iv.  584  ff. 
(Smith) ;  art.  in  McClintock  and  Strong,  ii.  30 ;  Hallam, 
Lit.  of  Europe,  ii.  401-404,  and  notes. 


110  CHURCH   UNITY 

is  interesting  to  think  of  this  school  at 
Frankfort-on-the-Oder  standing  in  the 
same  relation  to  the  Reformed  Church  and 
to  the  Lutheran  as  Union  Theological 
Seminary  stands  to  the  Old  and  New 
School  Presbyterians,  —  dedicated  to  peace 
and  compromise  from  its  very  origin.  It 
was  this  same  Frankfort  group  which  first 
gave  publicity  to  that  golden  word :  "  In 
necessary  things  unity,  in  things  indiffer- 
ent liberty,  in  all  charity."  This  is  the 
noble  motto  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance. 
We  are  indebted  to  Richard  Baxter  for  in- 
troducing this  sentence  to  the  English 
world,  which  he  does  in  his  "True  and 
Only  Way  of  Concord  of  All  Christian 
Churches."  1  There  Baxter  says :  "  Were 
there  no  more  said  of  all  this  subject  but 
that  of  Rupertus  Meldenius,  cited  by  Con- 
raclus  Bergius,  it  might  end  all  schism  if 
well  understood  and  used,  viz. :  Si  in  neces- 
sariis  sit  tcnitas,  in  non-necessariis  libertas, 
in  utrisque  caritas,  optimo  certe  loco  essent 
res  nostrae, —  Unity  in  things  necessary,  Lib- 
erty in  things  unnecessary,  and  Charity  in 
both,  would  do  all  our  work."  A  professor 
in  Union  Seminary  has  the  honor  of  first 

1  London,  1680- 


IREN1C  MOVEMENTS  HI 

tracing  this  word  to  its  origin.  In  the 
summer  of  1887  Dr.  Briggs  searched 
through  the  libraries  of  Germany  until  he 
found  a  copy  of  the  anonymous  book, 
"Paraenesis  Votiva,"  which  is  the  source 
of  this  immortal  sentence,  and  which  book 
is  referred  by  Bergius  to  Rupertus  Mel- 
denius.  The  probable  date  is  1627.  As 
Professor  Briggs  remarks,  the  author  does 
not  belong  to  men  of  fame.  He  passed 
away  in  obscurity.  But  his  words  remain, 
to  fructify  in  a  better  soil,  and  to  bring 
forth  fruit  in  a  better  age.  And  this  word 
of  his  should  keep  his  name  in  everlasting 
remembrance.1 

John  Durie  was  the  greatest  peacemaker 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  same 
scholar  already  mentioned  has  the  honor 
of  calling  the  attention  of  the  American 
Church  to  this  indefatigable  laborer  for 
church  union.2     Durie,  who  was  probably 

1  See  Briggs,  in  Presb.  Rev.  1887,  pp.  406  ff.,  743  ff. 

2  Briggs,  The  Work  of  John  Davie  in  behalf  of  Chris- 
tian Union  in  the  Seventeenth  Century :  Presb.  Rev.  viii. 
297-309.  ITere  is  published  for  the  first  time  Durie's 
Summaric  Relation  of  his  Work  for  Ecclesiastical  Pacifi- 
cation from  July,  1631,  until  September,  1633,  from  an 
original  manuscript  of  Durie,  discovered  by  Dr.  Briggs, 
and  now  in  the  library  of  Union  Seminary. 


112  CHURCII   UNITY 

a  Scotchman,  first  meets  us  at  Elbing, 
Prussia,  where  he  was  pastor  of  an  English 
factory.  There  he  became  acquainted  with 
Godeman,  a  privy  counsellor  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus.  Godeman  suggested  to  Durie 
that  whoever  should  bring  about  a  recon- 
ciliation between  the  great  parties  into 
which  Christendom  was  divided  would  be 
the  greatest  peacemaker.  .  This  remark 
was  the  turning  point  of  his  life.  In  1628 
he  addressed  a  letter  to  the  Swedish  king, 
"for  the  obtaining  of  aid  and  assistance 
in  this  seasonable  time,  to  seek  for  and 
re-establish  an  ecclesiastical  peace  among 
the  evangelical  churches."  The  king  gave 
his  sanction,  and  gave  him  letters  recom- 
mending him  to  all  Protestant  princes. 
Henceforth  he  devoted  his  life  to  this 
work.  He  went  to  and  fro  between  Eng- 
land and  the  continent,  attending  assem- 
blies, receiving  opinions,  exhorting  to 
union,  trying  to  bring  about  reconciliation 
of  differences,  and  looking  for  a  common 
platform  on  which  all  could  stand.  Some 
English  bishops,  —  even  Laud,  then  Bishop 
of  London,  —  looked  with  great  favor  on 
his  work.  Bishops  Davenant,  Morton,  and 
Hall  gave  him  their  views  on  Christian 


IRENTC  MOVEMENTS  113 

union,  which  were  published  in  1634. 
Bishop  Davenant's  statement  is  one  of  the 
most  valuable  contributions  to  Christian 
union  ever  published.  It  contains  this 
noble  sentence :  "  True  and  genuine  char- 
ity is  no  less  necessary  to  salvation  for 
all  churches  and  members  of  Christian 
churches  than  the  true  and  entire  pro- 
fession of  sound  and  saving  faith."  Many 
of  the  most  eminent  divines  in  England 
gave  a  hearty  God-speed  to  Durie.  It  is 
interesting  to  notice  so  early  as  this  a  sin- 
cere longing  for  Christian  union  on  the 
part  of  many  of  the  leading  spirits  both  in 
the  English  Church  and  on  the  continent. 
A  meeting  of  the  Protestant  states  at 
Frankfort,  in  1634,  passed  a  resolution  in- 
dorsing Durie  :  "  They  did  judge  his  work 
most  laudable,  most  acceptable  to  God, 
and  most  necessary  and  useful  to  the 
Church."  In  1640  he  presented  a  petition 
to  the  House  of  Commons,  urging  "that 
the  blessed  and  long-sought-for  union  of 
Protestant  churches  might  be  recom- 
mended unto  the  publick  prayers  of  the 
Church,  and  that  his  majesty  with  your 
honours  advice  and  counsell  might  be 
moved  to  call  a  general  Synod  of  Protes- 
8 


114  cnuncn  UNITY 

tants  in  clue  time  for  the  better  settling 
of  weighty  matters  in  the  Church,  which 
now  trouble  not  only  the  conscience  of 
most  men,  but  disturb  the  tranquility  of 
publick  states,  and  divide  the  churches 
from  one  another,  to  the  great  hindrance 
of  Christianity  and  the  dishonour  of  re- 
ligion." And  so  he  labored  on  through 
his  long  and  restless  life,  having  only  one 
object,  —  the  pacification  of  the  churches, 
and  their  restoration  to  ancient  unity. 
He  was  charged  by  William  Prynne  with 
being  "  the  time-serving  Proteus  and  am- 
bidexter divine ;  "  but  defended  himself 
as  "  the  unchanged,  constant,  and  sin- 
gle-hearted peacemaker."  His  principles 
were :  — 

"  (1)  A  full  body  of  practical  divinity, 
which  instead  of  the  ordinary  philosophical 
jangling  school  divinity,  might  be  proposed 
to  all  those  that  seeke  the  truth,  which  is 
after  godlinesse. 

"  (2)  To  abolish  the  names  of  parties,  as 
presbyterial,  prelatical,  congregational,  etc., 
and  to  be  called  Reformed  Christians  of  Eng- 
land, Scotland,  France,  Germany,  etc. 

"  (3)  To  discountenance  controversial  writ- 
ings by  private  persons. 


J  RUNIC  MOVEMENTS  115 

"  (4)  It  is  the  mind  of  Christ  that  his  ser- 
vants in  all  matters  merely  circnmstantiall 
by  him  not  determined  should  be  left  free  to 
follow  their  own  light,  as  it  may  be  offered, 
or  arise  unto  them,  from  the  general  rules  of 
edification  and  not  constrained  by  an  implicit 
faith  to  follow  the  dictates  of  other  men." 

This  great  apostle  of  Christian  union 
died  in  1680,  without  seeing  the  fruits  of 
his  labors.  The  times  were  too  turbulent 
and  the  age  was  not  ripe  for  his  pacific  ideas. 
Gieseler  says  he  received  much  more  en- 
couragement from  the  Reformed  than  from 
Lutherans.  He  was  three  hundred  years 
in  advance  of  his  age.  But,  as  Professor 
Briggs  says,  "  He  was  sowing  the  seed  and 
preparing  the  germs  of  Christian  tolera- 
tion, liberty,  and  union  that  have  unfolded 
in  later  time  and  richer  promises  for  the 
future.'' 1  Many  of  the  best  spirits  of  his 
time  gave  him  encouragement,  and  his 
numerous  books  and  his  tireless  labors 
form  one    of   the   noblest    legacies  which 

1  For  further  information,  see  Briggs,  as  above ; 
Gieseler  (ed.  Smith),  iv.  583-584  ;  Briggs,  in  Schaff- 
Herzog,  s.  v. ;  McOlintock,  in  McClintock  and  Strong, 
s.  v.,  and  the  references  there  given.  See  also  The 
Christian  Remembrancer,  January,  1855,  where  a  full 
account  is  given,  written  from  the  sources. 


116  CnURCH  UNITY 

church   history   has   bequeathed    us  from 
the  seventeenth  century. 

Hugo  Grotius,  a  contemporary  of  Calix- 
tus,  was  also  enamoured  of  the  idea  of  a 
united  Christendom.  He  differed  from 
Calixtus  in  this :  that  while  Calixtus  was 
a  stanch  Protestant,  and  made  his  con- 
cessions not  toward  Rome,  but  toward 
Geneva,  and  contented  himself  with  try- 
ing to  bring  the  Reformed  and  the  Luther- 
ans to  a  common  understanding,  Grotius 
turned  rather  toward  Rome,  and  advocated 
a  restored  and  purified  Catholicism,  as  a 
common  solvent  of  all  sects,  and  a  large 
fold  for  the  peaceable  meeting-place  of  all 
Christians.  This  strange  reversion  on 
Grotius's  part  to  the  Roman  Church  as 
the  hope  of  Christendom,  may  be  explained 
from  two  facts :  (1)  Grotius  was  an  Ar- 
minian.  He  was  delighted  to  find,  as  he 
thought,  that  the  stern  doctrines  of  Calvin 
were  absent  from  the  ancient  fathers,  that 
Jerome  and  Chrysostom  and  the  Catholic 
fathers  knew  nothing  of  these  tenets. 
This  led  him  to  a  passionate  rebound  in 
favor  of  antiquity.  (2)  The  iron  of  the 
Protestant  intolerance  had  entered  into  his 
own  soul.     After  his  escape   from  prison 


IREN1C  MOVEMENTS  117 

he  had  taken  refuge  in  France,  where  he 
was  received  with  open  arms.  The  cordial 
attitude  of  the  Catholic  ecclesiastics  sof- 
tened the  rigidity  of  his  Protestantism.  As 
Hallam  sa}s  :  "  The  ill  usage  he  sustained 
at  the  hands  of  those  who  boasted  their 
independence  of  Papal  tyranny;  the  ca- 
resses of  the  Gallican  clergy  after  he  had 
fixed  his  residence  at  Paris ;  the  growing 
dissensions  and  virulence  of  the  Protes- 
tants ;  the  choice  that  seemed  alone  to  be 
left  in  their  communion  between  a  fanati- 
cal anarchy,  disintegrating  everything  like 
a  church  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  domina- 
tion of  bigoted  and  vulgar  ecclesiastics  on 
the  other,  made  him  gradually  less  and 
less  averse  to  the  comprehensive  and  ma- 
jestic unity  of  the  Catholic  hierarchy,  and 
more  and  more  willing  to  concede  some 
point  of  uncertain  doctrine,  or  some  form 
of  ambiguous  expression."  l  By  ampie  quo- 
tations from  his  epistles  Hallam  has  proved 
this  defection  of  Grotius.  But  it  was  in 
the  interest  of  a  large  union.  He  thought 
the  Swedish,  the  English,  and  the  Danish 
churches  might  come  together,  under  a  re- 
vived and  reformed  Catholic  banner.     He 

1  Lit.  of  Europe,  ii.  397-398. 


US  CHURCH    UNITY 

was  — r  .v:t.-  c  :  liss  e  ns  i  ml    He  wanted  peace. 

be  wrote  i   fchei  as  a  statesman  than  a 

theologian.     It  was  peace  at  the  expense 

:  truth  ;  it  was  pc         ..:  the  expense  of 

the  fullest  liberty  of  private  judgment. 
1  ri  tins  did  not  himself  go  so  far  as  to 
m  ke  the  last  sacrifice  of  his  own  con- 
scienc  by  a  opting  the  infallibility  of  the 
R  m  d  I      irch.     Whether  he  have 

ne   a     had  he  lived,  it  is  useless  to  in- 

.    HissShemew  -   i vision, an halluci- 

d  ti  n.    The  hisl   ry    f  Roman  Catholicism 

:  :  the  last  three  hundred  yeais  has  pi   ven 

th   :. 

John  Owen,  the  gi  test  :  the  Puritan 
divines,  the  Xestor  of  the  Congregational- 
ists,  in  his  n  s  hism,  lays  down 

a  liberal  platform.     He  holds  that  the  true 

I  note  of  the  Church  of  C 
is  union  with  Christ,  "  nd  wherever  there 
:  man,  or  a  body  of  men,  who  are  unite  1 
to  Him  I  v  living  faith,  and  are  keeping 
:  mmandments.  he  or  they  are  in  com- 
munion with  the  Church  ^  V  "He 
belon:  t  the  I  hui  h  itfa  lie,"  runs  his 
noble  charter,  u  who  is  unite d  to  Christ 
by  the  spirit,  and  none  other."  2  He  vin- 
:  W  .  .-   E     B    --  .'.I.  xix.  253. 


I  REN  I C  MOVEMENTS  HQ 

dicated  boldly  the  right  of  the  Noncon- 
formist churches  to  exist,  and  yet  in  an 
irenical  spirit,  and  as  one  sincerely  desir- 
ing the  union  of  all  Christians  in  Eng- 
land. Thus  in  his  vindication  of  the 
Nonconformists  from  the  charge  of  schism, 
an  answer  to  a  sermon  by  Stillingneet 
(1680),  he  deprecates  religious  controversy 
in  the  interest  of  Protestant  union,  and 
says  that  in  the  presence  of  the  common 
danger  of  the  Roman  Church  the  sharp 
words  of  Stillingneet  are  unseasonable.1 
But  he  had  no  faith  in  artificial  schemes 
of  union.  He  says :  "  I  should  be  very 
sorry  that  any  man  living  should  outgo 
me  in  desires  that  all  who  fear  God 
throughout  the  world,  especially  in  these 
nations,  were  of  one  way  as  well  as  of  one 
heart.  I  know  that  I  desire  it  sincerely. 
But  I  verily  believe  that  when  God  shall 
accomplish  it,  it  will  be  the  effect  of  love, 
and  not  the  cause  of  love.  There  is  not 
a  greater  vanity  in  the  world  than  to  drive 
men  into  a  particular  profession,  and  then 
suppose  that  love  will  be  the  necessary 
consequence  of  it;  to  think  that  if,  by 
sharp   rebukes,  by  cutting,  bitter   expres- 

1  Works,  Ed.  Russell,  xix.  571. 


120  cnuRcn  unity 

sions,  they  can  drive  men  into  such  and 
such  practices,  love  will  certainly  ensue." 
These  are  golden  words,  as  true  now  as 
in  Owen's  troublous  day. 

Owen  had  his  own  scheme  of  compre- 
hension. In  his  Tract  on  Union  anions: 
Protestants  (1680)  he  outlines  a  plan  of  a 
Larger  Church  of  England  by  law  estab- 
lished, which  would  include  all  dissenters, 
but  exclude  all  Romanists.  As  a  doc- 
trinal basis  he  would  have  the  articles  of 
the  Church  of  England  as  explained  in 
the  public  authorized  writings  of  the 
Church  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth  and 
James,  "  before  the  inroad  of  novel  opin- 
ions among  us,"  to  be  subscribed,  however, 
only  by  ministers.  All  spiritual  affairs 
were  to  be  left  with  the  churches,  and 
"  outward  rites  and  observances "  which 
were  not  inconsistent  with  the  supremacy 
of  Protestantism  were  also  to  be  left  to 
the  free  determination  of  the  churches.1 
But  for  such  a  lar^e  scheme  as  this  Engf- 
land  was  not  then  ready.  Owen  antici- 
pated the  broad  statesmanship  of  Arnold 
of  Rugby. 

Richard  Baxter,  the  great  English  Prot- 

1  Works,  Ed.  Russell,  xvii.  G03,  604. 


IREN1C  MOVEMENTS  121 

estant  schoolman,  was  another  prophet 
of  Christian  union.  Living  in  a  most 
stormy  and  trying  age,  when  the  spirit 
of  faction  ran  high,  when  ecclesiastical 
fighting  was  the  order  of  the  day,  he  was 
the  great  peacemaker.  He  spoke  in  these 
terms  of  his  disappointment  over  the  re- 
sult of  the  Westminster  Assembly  of 
Divines.  Their  scheme  was  not  suffi- 
ciently comprehensive  for  him.  "The 
Christian  world,  since  the  days  of  the 
apostles,  has  never  seen  a  synod  of  more 
excellent  divines  than  this  and  the  synod 
of  Dort.  Yet  highly  as  I  honor  the  men 
I  am  not  of  their  mind  in  every  part  of 
the  government  which  they  would  have 
set  up.  Some  words  in  their  catechism 
I  wish  had  been  more  clear,  and,  above 
all,  I  wish  that  the  Parliament  and  their 
more  skilful  hand  had  done  more  than  was 
done  to  heal  our  breaches,  and  had  hit 
upon  the  right  way,  either  to  unite  with 
the  Episcopalians  and  Independents,  or  at 
least  had  pitched  on  terms  that  are  lit  for 
universal  concord,  and  left  all  to  come  in 
upon  those  terms  that  would."  l     Baxter's 

1  Davies,  Life  of  Richard  Baxter,   Lond.   18S7,  pp. 
101,  102. 


122  CIWRCH  UNITY 

chief  objection  to  the  Westminster  As- 
sembly was  (1)  against  their  making  pres- 
byterial  orders  a  matter  of  divine  right. 
This,  he  saw,  would  form  another  separat- 
ing barrier.  Baxter  was  a  Presbyterian, 
but  would  be  now  classed  as  a  Low-Church 
Episcopalian.  That  is,  he  believed  Epis- 
copacy to  be  a  convenient  and  very  ancient 
form  of  polity,  though  without  Scriptural 
authority.  "  As  to  fixed  bishops  of  parti- 
cular churches,  that  were  superior  in  de- 
gree to  presbyters,  though  I  have  nothing 
at  all  in  Scripture  for  them,  yet  I  saw  that 
the  reception  of  them  was  so  very  early 
and  so  very  general,  I  thought  it  most 
improbable  that  it  was  contrary  to  the 
mind  of  the  apostles." 1  Baxter  would 
have  had  a  modified  presbyterial  episcopate 
as  a  centre  of  union  for  all  parties,  and 
would  have  thrown  overboard  all  "  divine 
right "  theories  of  the  ministry  as  divisive 
and  false.  But  more  important  still  was  his 
objection  (2)  to  their  doctrine  of  coercion. 
He  saw  that  this  would  only  accentuate 
Church  divisions  and  embitter  all  parties. 
He  says :  "  I  disliked  the  course  of  some 
of  the  more  rigid  of  them,  grasping  at  a 

1  Autobio^.,  quoted  in  Davies,  1.  c,  p.  104. 


1REN1C  MOVEMENTS  123 

kind  of  secular  power.  They  reproach 
the  ministerial  power,  as  if  it  were  not- 
worth  a  straw,  unless  the  magistrate's 
sword   enforce   it.       What  then   did  the 

primitive  Church  for  three  hundred  years? 
Till  magistrates  keep  the  sword  them- 
selves, and  learn  to  deny  it  to  every  angry 
clergyman  who  would  do  his  own  work  by 
it,  and  leave  them  to  their  own  weapons, 
the  Word  and  spiritual  keys,  and,  va/eant 
quantum  valere  ftossunt,  the  Church  will 
never  have  unity  and  peace.  I  disliked 
also  some  of  them  that  were  not  tender 
enough  to  dissenting  brethren,  but  too 
much  against  liberty,  as  others  were  too 
much  for  it,  and  thought  by  votes  and 
numbers  to  do  that  which  love  and  reason 
would  have  done."  l  This  is  as  noble  a 
testimony  for  toleration  as  it  is  for  Chris- 
tian union. 

Baxter  wrote  to  John  Howe,  the  illus- 
trious chaplain  to  the  Protector,  in  reply 
to  Howe's  statement  that  the  Protector 
desired  Church  union.  Baxter  says: 
"  The  Lord  Protector  is  noted  as  a  man 
of  a  catholic  spirit,  desirous  of  the  unity 
and  peace  of  all  the   servants  of   Christ. 

1  Autobiog.,  quoted  in  Duvies,  1.  c,  p.  105. 


1:24  CUURCU    CX/TY 

Wc  d  -ire  notliing  in  the  world  (at  fa 

so  much  as 

such  a  di  o  :  but  more  is  to  be 

for  uuion  and  peace.  Would  he.  first, 
but  take  some  healing  principles  into  his 
own  consideration  ;  2d,  when  he  is  satis- 
.  expose  them  to  one  or  two 
leading  men  of  each  pai  dian, 

Presbyterian,     Congregational.     Erastian, 
Anabaptist),  and  privately  feel  them,  and 
get  them  to  a  consent;  3d.  and  then  let 
them   be   printed,    to   see   how   they   will 
h    (with   the  reasons   annexed):    4th, 
and   then   let  a   free-chofl  n      ssembly  be 
called  to  agree  upon  them,  he  would  ex- 
ceedingly oblige  and  endear  all  nations  to 
him:  and  I  am  confident,  as  I  live,  that 
by  God's  blessing  he  may  happily  accom- 
plish so  much  of  this  vrill- 
3   -          -  fctle  us  in  much  peace,  and 
heal  abundance    of   our 

But    B  rter   ha  1   fallen   on    evil    d 
.  modine  I 

a  mo  _  ■  ■  -  $ented  as  a 

basis  of   union   to   the  Savoy   Conference 
in    1661,    after    the    1 

1  Qu  Life  of  Baxter,  p.  175. 


JRENIC  MOVEMENTS  1  26 

1  by  the  Episcopalian  party,  and  their 

:nr  of  a  Btifl  I  the 

whole    unad  .  !    liturgy,   which    has 

itchword   of    the   Church   of 

;•  since,   was    buttressed   by 

A'-i  of  Uniformity,  and  tb  holy 

and  .  the  i  bnrch   of 

Christ  in  England — Baxter  among  them 

—  were  thrown  out  of  their  parishes,  and 

many  of  them  left  to  perish  in  hunger,  in 

exile,  or  in  prison. 

Some   years  before   this,  in   1653,   how- 
ever,  Baxter   had  formed   the    W 
Association  as   a    practical   exhibition    of 
union.     He  describes  it  himself  :  — 

"  The  main  body  of  our  Association  were 
men  that  thought  the  Episcopal  Presby- 
terians and  Independents  had  each  of  them 
some  good  in  which  they  excelled  the  other 
two  parties,  and  each  of  them  some  mistakes  ; 
and  that  to  select  out  of  all  three  the  best 
part,  and  leave  the  worst,  was  the  most  desir- 
able (and  ancient)  form  of  government." * 

We  may  close  our  account  of  Baxter's 
contribution  to  this  history  by  his  ringing 

1  Church  Concord,  Preface,  London,  1691,  quoted  by 
Briggs,  Barriers  to  Christian  Union,  in  Preab.  Rev. 
viii.  452. 


126  cnuRcn  unity 

appeal  to  come  together  on  the  one  Chris- 
tian basis  of  faith,  hope,  and  charity. 

"Why,  sirs,  have  not  Independents,  Pres- 
byterians, Episcopal,  etc.,  one  God,  one 
Christ,  one  Spirit,  one  Creed,  one  Scripture, 
one  hope  of  everlasting  life  ?  Are  our  dis- 
agreements so  great  that  we  may  not  live 
together  in  love,  and  close  in  fraternal  union 
and  unity  ?  Are  we  not  of  one  religion  ? 
Do  we  differ  in  fundamentals  or  substantial  ? 
Will  not  conscience  worry  us  ?  Will  not 
posterity  curse  us  if  by  our  divisions  we 
betray  the  gospel  into  the  hands  of  the 
enemies  ?  And  if  by  our  mutual  envyings  and 
jealousies  and  perverse  zeal  for  our  several 
conceits,  we  should  keep  open  the  breach  for 
all  heresies  and  wickedness  to  enter,  and 
make  a  prey  for  our  own  poor  people's  souls  ; 
Brethren,  you  see  other  bonds  are  loosed; 
Satan  will  make  his  advantage  of  these  daises 
of  licentiousness.  Let  us  straiten  the  bond  of 
Christian  unity  and  love,  and  help  each  other 
against  the  powers  of  hell,  and  join  our 
forces  against  one  common  enemy."  1 

As  a  probable  ontgrowth  of  Baxter's 
able  pleas  and  efforts  for  union,  a  move- 
ment among  the  clergy  in  Cambridgeshire 

1  Christian  Concord,  London,  1653,  p.  96,  quoted  by 
Briggs,  Presb.  Rev.,  1887,  p.  454. 


IRE  NIC  MOVEMENTS  127 

during  the  years  1656-1658  may  be  cited. 
Dissociated  from  any  compulsory  measures 
and  based  upon  a  purely  voluntary  prin- 
ciple, it  reflects  an  earnest  spirit,  which  in 
many  souls  longed  and  Labored  during  a 
tempestuous  period  for  spiritual  unity  and 
harmony.  From  a  very  interesting  and 
detailed  account1  of  the  proceedings  of  this 
association  of  ministers  we  make  a  few 
selections  illustrative  of  the  purposes  which 
brought  them  together :  — 

"  Jan.  20 :  1656  :  At  a  meeting  at  Cambridge 
it  was  upon  the  question  resolved : 

"1.  That  wee  all  meet  monthlie,  &  every 
time  wee  will  bee  all  present,  unlesse  a 
rationall  account  can  bee  given  to  the  con- 
trarie,  &  that  wee  will  meet  Feb.  3 :  1656. 

"2.  That  in  our  meetinges  wee  will  keepe 
our  selves  close  to  our  proper  busines,  not 
medling  with  the  civill  affaires  of  the  comon- 
wealth. 

"  5.  That  wee  all  will  agree  to  the  same 
order  &  method  in  administration  of  ordi- 
nances even  in  circumstances  as  far  as  pos- 
sibly wee  can. 

1  For  full  .account,  see  The  English  Historical  Re- 
view, Oct.,  1895,  pp.  744-753,  with  introductory  para- 
graph by  Rev.  H.  W.  P.  Stevens. 


128  CUURCII  UNITY 

"Feb.  3:  1656.  Mr  King  of  Fulmire 
moderator. 

•  «.... 

"  3.  That  wee  determine  as  neere  as  wee 
can  to  promote  an  uniformitie  in  catechisinge. 

"April  7:  1657. 

"1.  Whatsoever  wee  have  doe  or  shall 
resolve  upon  wee  agree  to  put  in  practice  till 
publike  authoritie  shall  settle  some  things 
more  particularly. 

"All  scandalous  persons  hereafter  men- 
tioned are  to  be  suspended  from  ye  sacrament 
of  the  lords  supper. 

"  Any  person,  father  or  mother,  that  shall 
consent  to  the  marriage  of  theyr  child  to  a 
papist  or  any  parson  that  shall  marry  a 
papist.  Any  person  that  shall  repayre  for 
any  advice  to  any  wiche  wizard  or  fortune 
teller. 

"May  5:  1657. 

"1.  As  to  the  article  in  the  ordinance  for 
scandall  relating  to  those  that  repaire  to 
Wiches  Wizard  &  fortune  tellers  &c.  It  was 
this  day  advised  that  wee  shall  account  all 
those  guiltie  of  that  scandall  who  repaire  to 
any  that  are  famed  to  bee  such,  though  not 
convict  by  law. 

"2.   Also  wee  advise  that  they  who  use 


1RENIC  MOVEMENTS  129 

spellcs  or  charmes,  or  pretend  to  use  them 
thereby  to  deceave  others,  shall  bee  accounted 
guiltie  of  Bcandall. 
«  June  2  :  1G57. 

"4.  Wee  judge  it  may  bee  convenient  that 
the  agreement  of  the  Ministers  of  this 
Countie  touching  Catechising,  private  instruc- 
tions of  our  people,  &  administration  of 
sacraments  bee  in  some  way  made  publikely 
knowen  to  our  people." 

A  very  interesting  movement  was  that 
to  bring  together  the  Gallican  and  English 
churches.  But  this  must  now  be  passed 
over.  Lupton  has  just  made  it  the  subject 
of  an  instructive  monograph.1 

Robert  Hall  (cl.  1831)  was  an  earnest 
advocate  of  Christian  union.  His  words 
are  fully  equal  to  those  of  the  latest  zealot 
in  this  matter.     He  says  :  — 

"  Nothing  more  abhorrent  to  the  principles 
and  maxims  of  the  sacred  oracles  can  be  con- 
ceived than  the  idea  of  a  plurality  of  true 
churches,  neither  in  actual  communion  with 
each  other,  nor  in  the  capacity  for  such  com- 
munion.  Though  this  rending  of  the  seamless 

1  Archbishop  Wake  and  the  Project  of  Union  (1717- 
1720)  Between  the  Gallican  and  Anglican  Churches. 
London,  1896. 


130  CHURCH   UNITY 

coat  of  our  Saviour,  this  schism  in  the  mem- 
bers of  his  mystical  body,  is  by  far  the 
greatest  calamity  which  has  befallen  the 
Christian  interest,  and  one  of  the  most  fatal 
effects  of  the  great  apostasy  foretold  by  the 
sacred  penman,  we  have  been  so  long  famil- 
iarized to  it,  as  to  be  scarcely  sensible  of  its 
enormity  j  nor  does  it  excite  suspicion  or 
concern  in  any  degree  proportioned  to  what 
would  be  felt  by  one  who  had  contemplated 
the  Church  in  the  first  ages.  Christian  soci- 
eties regarding  each  other  with  the  jealousies 
of  rival  empires,  each  trying  to  raise  itself 
on  the  ruin  of  all  the  others,  making  extra- 
vagant boasts  of  superior  purity,  generally  in 
exact  proportion  to  their  departures  from  it, 
and  scarcely  deigning  to  acknowledge  the 
possibility  of  obtaining  salvation  out  of  their 
pale,  is  the  odious  and  disgusting  spectacle 
which  modern  Christendom  presents.  The 
evils  which  result  from  this  state  of  divi- 
sion are  incalculable.  It  supplies  infidels 
with  their  most  plausible  topics  of  invective  ; 
it  hardens  the  conscience  of  the  irreligious ; 
it  weakens  the  hands  of  the  good,  impedes 
the  efficacy  of  prayer,  and  is  probably  the 
principal  obstruction  to  that  ample  effusion 
of  the  Spirit  which  is  essential  to  the  renova- 
tion of  the  world." 1 

1  Works  I.  289.    See  Princeton  Ess.,  2d  Series,  p.  237. 


IRE  NIC  MOVEMENTS  131 

This  passage  reveals  Hall  far  in  advance 
of  the  general  sentiment  of  his  day. 

A  beautiful  irenicon  was  that  of  an 
American  lawyer  of  the  Reformed  Church, 
Abraham  Van  Dyke,  Esq.,  who  in  1836 
published  a  book  entitled,  "Christian 
Union ;  or  an  Argument  for  the  Abolition 
of  Sects."  It  was  dedicated  to  the  Rev. 
David  Abeel,  a  missionary  of  the  Dutch 
Reformed  Church  in  the  East.  It  is  an 
earnest  and  pious  plea  for  Christian  union. 
Van  Dyke  had  also  the  faith  to  believe  that 
such  a  union  would  in  fact  soon  be  realized. 
This  was  a  more  daring  faith  sixty  years 
ago  than  now.  He  considers  every  objec- 
tion, and  modern  discussion  has  added  but 
little  to  his  systematic  and  large-minded 
presentation. 

The  irenic  proposals  of  Van  Dyke  met 
with  serious  opposition  from  two  influen- 
tial sources.  One  was  the  opposition  of 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Bishop  of  Ken- 
tucky, Dr.  B.  B.  Smith.1  He  welcomed 
the  book  as  an  evidence  of  dissatisfaction 
with  the  present  position  of  Protestantism, 
but  he  had  no  faith  in  the  peaceable  and 

1  Review  of  Van  Dyke's  book  in  Literary  and  TheoL 
Rev.  ed.  by  L.  Woods,  Jr.,  Sept.  1835. 


132  cnuRcn  unity 

catholic  plans  of  Yan  Dyke.  These  plans 
he  ridiculed  by  calling  them  simply  an 
"  agreement  that  Christians  shall  not  bite 
and  devour  one  another."  On  the  con- 
trary, said  Bishop  Smith,  it  is  futile  to  talk 
about  Christian  union  until  all  Christians 
are  agreed  in  one  outward  form  of  church 
organization.  "  What  sort  of  union,"  says 
Bishop  Smith,  "  among  the  followers  of 
Christ  should  be  proposed  ?  Shall  they  be 
called  upon  to  unite  in  some  way  or  another 
as  they  now  stand  divided ;  or  are  they 
bound  to  agree  in  one  outward  form  of 
Christianity?  For  our  part  we  most  ex- 
plicitly avow  our  conviction  that  every 
attempt  to  put  a  stop  to  the  dissensions 
and  subdivisions  which  distract  the  Church 
must  forever  prove  futile,  until  Christians 
are  agreed  in  one  outward  form  of  Chris- 

o 

tianity.  To  talk  about  union  in  feeling 
and  spirit,  whilst  there  is  disunion  in  fact,  is 
about  as  wise  as  to  exhort  those  to  love  one 
another  between  whom  occasion  of  deadly 
feud  exists."  Bishop  Smith  himself  was  a 
Hig-h  Churchman.  He  considered  "one 
of  the  grand  mistakes  of  the  Reforma- 
tion a  separation  from  the  Church  instead 
of  reformation  in  the  Church."     This  hos- 


IRE  NIC  MOVEMENTS  133 

tile  reception  of  the  Dutch  Presbyterian 
layman's  pacific  propositions  on  the  part 
of  this  prelate  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  was  a  distinct  intimation  on  the 
part  of  that  church  that  nothing  could  be 
considered  on  this  subject  unless  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Episcopal  Church  constitution 
was  laid  down  as  the  first  plank  in  the 
platform. 

Another  powerful  voice  lifted  against 
the  too  hasty  adoption  of  the  peace  proposi- 
tions of  Van  Dyke  was  that  of  the  "  Prince- 
ton Review."  In  an  article  published  in 
1836  the  Review,  then  conducted  by  its 
founder,  Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  expressed 
hearty  sympathy  with  the  aim  and  spirit 
of  Van  Dyke's  book,  but  could  not  go  so 
far  as  the  enthusiastic  author  for  these 
reasons :  — ■ 

(1)  Truth  is  greater  than  union.  In 
such  an  amalgamation  of  Christians  some 
would  have  to  lay  aside  their  convictions, 
or  keep  silent  respecting  them,  and  either 
course  would  be  disloyalty  to  the  God  of 
truth.  "  Every  attempt  to  reconcile  differ- 
ences among  Christians  which  involves  the 
relinquishment  of  truth,  or  a  compromise 
with  important  corruption,  either  in  doc- 


134  CHURCH  UNITY 

trine  or  worship;  or  giving  countenance 
to  what  is  deemed  an  injurious  departure 
from  what  Christ  has  commanded,  is  un- 
doubtedly criminal  and  mischievous." 

(2)  Such  an  amalgamation  of  the 
churches,  on  the  principle  that  their  di- 
versities in  doctrine  and  order,  as  long 
as  they  do  not  affect  the  fundamentals  of 
religion,  are  of  little  account,  and  ought 
not  to  permit  the  most  intimate  union, 
would  discourage  that  "searching  of  the 
Scriptures  "  and  that  earnest  "  contending 
for  the  faith"  which  is  expressly  com- 
manded as  a  Christian  duty. 

(3)  But  such  union,  even  if  attained 
without  dishonest  sacrifice,  would  do  no 
good.  It  would  not  produce  love,  and 
without  love  it  would  be  a  curse.  The 
nearer  the  Christian  denominations  come 
to  each  other,  the  more  they  would  fight. 
This  writer  does  indeed  express  the  hope 
that  all  the  Reformed  churches  in  the 
United  States  holding  the  Presbyterian 
system  will  be  united  in  organic  union, 
and  that  some  alive  then  (1836)  would 
live  to  see  the  day,  but  he  says  that  even 
such  a  union  as  that  he  would  strenuously 
oppose,  because  the  conditions  of  friend- 


IRENIC  MOVEMENTS  135 

ship  and  love  which  would  make  the  anion 
a  blessing  did  not  then  exist. 

In  conclusion  tins  able  writer  lays  down 
the  following  principles  :  — 

1.  All  who  profess  the  true  religion  in 
its  essential  characteristics  belong  to  the 
Church  catholic,  and  ought  to  be  so  re- 
garded by  all  who  believe  that  Christ  is 
one  and  his  religion  one. 

2.  Concurrence  in  some  outward  form 
of  Christianity  is  not  essential  to  Christian 
union,  or  to  the  communion  of  saints. 

3.  Yet  everything  that  tends  to  divide 
the  body  of  Christ  or  its  members  from 
each  other  is  sinful. 

4.  The  day  is  coming,  and  is  not  far  dis- 
tant, when  the  people  of  God  will  be  so 
united  both  in  form  and  spirit  that  they 
will  feel  that  they  are  one  body  in  Christ, 
and  every  one  members  one  of  another. 

5.  A  formal  coalition  of  all  sects  into  one 
body  under  one  name  would  not  neces- 
sarily be  Christian  union. 

6.  The  spirit  of  sectarism  must  first  be 
slain,  and  the  spirit  of  charity  become  tri- 
umphant in  every  part  of  the  Church. 

7.  Attempts  to  break  down  the  barriers 
which  now  divide  Christians  before  such 


136  CHURCn  UNITY 

baptism  of  the  spirit  of  love  is  given  are 
of  no  use. 

8.  Those  churches  which  stand  aloof 
from  other  churches  on  grounds  not  sup- 
ported by  the  Word  of  God  are  guilty  of 
schism.  This  applies  to  the  Roman  and 
to  the  Episcopal  churches. 

9.  There  will  be  at  length  a  pouring  out 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  a  measure  never 
known  since  Pentecost,  which  will  prepare 
the  world  for  a  consummation  devoutly  to 
be  wished,  —  the  formal  and  real  union  of 
all  Christians.1 

It  remains  to  speak  of  irenic  movements 
in  smaller  sections  of  the  Church. 

There  was  first  the  effort  to  bring  to- 
gether the  Presbyterian  or  moderate  party 
in  the  Church  of  England  and  the  Congre- 
gationalists.  Baxter  was  one  of  a  noble 
band  who  saw  that  underneath  all  differ- 
ences there  was  a  real  unity. 

"  There  is  no  such  difference,"  said 
Thomas  Hill,  a  Presbyterian,  in  1645, 
"  for  aught  I  know,  between  the  sober 
Independents  and  moderate  Presbyterians, 
but  if  things  were  wisely  managed,  both 

1  See  Princeton  Essays,  2d  Series,  N.  Y.,  1847, 
pp.  236-258. 


IRENIC  MOVEMENTS  137 

might  be  reconciled;  and  by  the  happy 
union  of  them  both  together,  the  Church 

of  England  might  be  a  glorious  church, 
and  that  without  persecuting,  banishing, 
or  any  such  thing,  which  some  moutlis  are 
too  full  of.  I  confess  it  is  most  desirable 
that  confusion  (that  many  people  fear  by 
Independency)  might  be  prevented  ;  and 
it  is  likewise  desirable  that  the  severity 
that  some  others  fear  by  the  rigor  of  pres- 
bytery might  be  hindered;  therefore  let 
us  labor  for  a  prudent  love,  and  study  to 
advance  one  happy  accommodation."  l 

On  the  side  of  the  Congregationalists 
Jeremiah  Burroughs  advanced  these  mag- 
nanimous sentiments.  It  is  notable  to  see 
that  the  finest  and  highest  of  recent  words 
for  the  universal  peace  of  Protestant  Chris- 
tendom are  but  the  echo  of  these  proposals 
of  the  seventeenth  century. 

"  Why  should  we  not  think  it  possible," 
says  Burroughs,  "  for  us  to  go  along,  close 
together  in  love  and  peace,  though  in  some 
things  our  judgments  be  apparently  differ- 
ent one  from  another?      I  will  give  you 

1  An  Olive  Branch  of  Peace  and  Accommodation. 
Lord  Mayor's  sermon,  1G45.  London,  1648.  p.  38. 
Quoted  by  Briggs  in  Presbyterian  Review,  viii.,  451. 


138  cnuRcn  unity 

who  are  scholars  a  sentence  to  write  upon 
your  study  doors,  as  needful  an  one  in 
these  times  as  any ;  it  is  this  :  Opinionum 
varletas,  et  opiniantium  unitas  non  sunt 
ao-vo-Tara,  Variety  of  opinions  and  unity 
of  those  that  hold  them  may  stand  to- 
gether. There  hath  been  much  ado  to 
get  us  to  agree;  we  laboured  to  get  our 
opinions  into  one,  but  they  will  not  come 
together.  It  may  be  in  our  endeavors  for 
agreement  we  have  begun  at  the  wrong 
end.  Let  us  try  what  we  can  do  at  the 
other  end ;  it  may  be  we  shall  have  better 
success  there.  Let  us  labour  to  joyne  our 
hearts,  to  engage  our  affections  one  to  an- 
other; if  we  cannot  be  of  one  mind  that 
we  may  agree,  let  us  agree  that  we  may  be 
of  one  mind."  1 

In  answer  to  this  flag  of  truce  the  Pres- 
byterian ministers  of  the  Provincial  As- 
sembly of  London  in  1653  sent  forth  the 
following :  — 

"  A  fifth  sort  are  our  reverend  brethren  of 
the  New  and  Old  England  of  the  Congrega- 
tional way,  who  hold  our  churches  to  be 
true  churches,  and  our  ministers  true  minis- 

i  "  Irenicum  to  the  Lovers  of  Truth  and  Peace." 
London,  1645.     p.  255.    Briggs  as  above,  p.  451. 


IRENIC  MOVEMENTS  139 

ters,  though  they  differ  from  us  in  some  lesser 
things.  We  have  been  necessitated  to  fall 
upon  some  things,  wherein  they  and  we  dis- 
agree, and  have  represented  the  reasons  of 
our  dissent.  But  we  here  profess  that  this 
disagreement  shall  not  hinder  us  from  any 
Christian  accord  with  them  in  affection  ;  that 
we  can  willingly  write  upon  our  study  doors 
that  motto  which  Mr.  Jer.  Burroughs  (who 
a  little  before  his  death  did  ambitiously  en- 
deavour after  union  amongst  brethren,  as 
some  of  us  can  testifie)  persuades  all  schol- 
ars unto:  ojnnionum  varietas,  et  opiniantium 
unitas  non  sunt  do-tWara.  And  that  we  shall 
be  willing  to  entertain  any  sincere  motion  (as 
we  have  also  formerly  declared  in  our  printed 
vindication),  that  shall  farther  a  happy  accom- 
modation between  us. 

"The  last  sort  are  the  moderate,  godly 
Episcopal  men,  that  hold  ordination  by  pres- 
byters to  be  lawful  and  valid  ;  that  a  bishop 
and  a  presbyter  are  one  and  the  same  order 
of  ministry,  that  are  orthodox  in  doctrinal 
truth,  and  yet  hold  that  the  government  of 
the  Church  by  a  perpetual  moderatour  is 
most  agreeable  to  Scripture  pattern.  Though 
herein  we  differ  from  them,  yet  we  are  farre 
from  thinking  that  this  difference  should  hin- 
der a  happy  union  between  them  and  us. 
Nay,  we  crave  leave  to  profess  to  the  world 


140  CHURCH   UNITY 

that  it  will  never  (as  we  humbly  conceive) 
be  well  with  England  till  there  be  an  union 
endeavoured  and  affected  between  all  those 
that  are  orthodox  in  doctrine  though  differ- 
ing among  themselves  in  some  circumstances 
about  Church  government."  1 

Unhappily,  the  England  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  was  too  stormy  for  the 
fruition  of  such  lofty  desires.  But  on 
this  continent  twenty-four  years  before 
the  Presbyterian  Assembly  of  London  is- 
sued that  remarkable  paper,  there  had  been 
realized  exactly  the  union  for  which  these 
men  were  praying.  At  Salem,  in  1629, 
the  Plymouth  Congregational  Church  and 
the  Salem  Presbyterial-Episcopal  Church 
were  united  in  one  blessed  fellowship,  —  a 
happy  omen  for  this  continent.2 

An  important  union  movement  of  mod- 
ern times  was  that  which  resulted  in  the 
union  of  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed 
churches  of  Prussia,  in  1817.  So  far  back 
as  1720,  Christoph  Matthaus  Pfaff,  chan- 

1  Jus  Divinum  Minister ii  Evangelici.  London,  1653. 
Briggs,  p.  451. 

2  Bacon,  Genesis  of  the  New  England  Churches, 
pp.  471-477.  Faulkner,  On  the  Early  History  of 
the  New  England  Church,  in  Reformed  Quarterly 
Review. 


IRE  NIC  MOVEMENTS  141 

cellor  of  the  University  of  Tiibingen,  who 
had  been  influenced  by  Pietism,  proposed  a 
union  between  these  two  churches  in  Iris 
"  Alloquium  Irenicum  ad  Protestantes." 
Their  points  of  union  in  doctrine,  he  said, 
were  far  more  important  than  their  points 
of  difference.  His  thesis  found  no  favor. 
Even  such  conciliatoiy  theologians  as 
Weismann  of  Tubingen  and  Mosheim  of 
Helmstadt  opposed  it.  Forty  years  later 
another  seed  was  dropped.  Heumann  of 
Gottingen,  a  Lutheran,  wrote  a  treatise  in 
which  he  defended  the  Reformed  doctrine 
of  the  Supper,  and  asked  why  the  two 
churches  could  not  come  together,  the 
Reformed  holding  in  abeyance  their  doc- 
trine of  predestination,  and  the  Lutherans 
their  doctrine  of  the  Supper.  In  1764 
this  pamphlet  was  brought  out  by  Sack, 
after  the  author's  death,  and  fell  like  a 
bombshell  in  grave  and  quiet  Germany. 
Many  Lutherans  replied  to  it.  Others 
considered  it  favorably.1  At  any  rate  it 
prepared  the  way  for  the  determined 
effort  of  King  Frederick  William  III., 
stimulated  by  the  memories  of  the  Refor- 
mation which  came   to   him  at  its   three 

1  Kurtz,  Church  Hist.,  Macphersou's  tr.,  iii.  109-110. 


142  church  unity 

hundredth  anniversary,  to  bring  together 
the   two   churches.      On  the   2d  of  May, 
1817,  he  addressed  a  letter  to  Bishop  Sack 
and  Provost  Hanstein,  in  which  he  said, 
"  I  expect  from  you  propositions  for  the 
easiest  and  most  appropriate  manner  of  unit- 
ing the  two  slightly  divergent  confessions." 
But  it  was  easier  to  say  this  than  it  was 
to  bring  about  a  union.     However,  after 
many  conferences  and  concessions  it  was 
brought  about  in  1821  —  its  outward  sym- 
bol being  a  new  liturgy  in  the  preparation 
of  which  the  pious  king  himself  took  part; 
but  which  many,  both  Lutherans  and  Re- 
formed, thought  too  Catholicizing  in  its 
tendencies.     This  objection,  however,  was 
partially  obviated  in  a  revised  edition  in 
1829.     The  result  of  the  union  was  that 
there  existed  in  Prussia,  Nassau,  Baden, 
Rhenish  Bavaria,  Anhalt,  and  Hesse  the 
United  Evangelical  State  Church,  with  a 
common  government  and  liturgy  in  which 
these   parties    abode    peaceably   together, 
namely,  the  Lutherans,  and  the  Reformed  — 
both  parties  holding  to  their  peculiar  doc- 
trines, but  not  considering  these  as  points 
of  division  and  strife  —  and  a  real  union 
party,  which  had  abandoned  in  reality  or 


IREN1C  MOVEMENTS  143 

in  effect  a  belief  in  these  doctrines.  But 
it  was  a  question  whether  this  union  has 
been  a  great  benefit  to  the  German  Church. 
Brought  about  by  the  will  of  the  king, 
not  meeting  any  deep  need  or  response  in 
the  hearts  of  the  people,  it  naturally  alien- 
ated those  earnest  souls  who  held  firmly  to 
the  Confessions,  to  whom  doctrinal  loyalty 
and  strictness  of  faith  and  denominational 
love  were  the  life  of  their  life.  A  church 
cannot  afford  to  part  with  these.  The 
men  in  whom  the  Lutheran  tradition  was 
a  living  reality  remained  out  of  the  union, 
and  the  harsh  measures  of  the  king  alien- 
ated multitudes.  Steffens  was  deprived 
of  his  professorship  and  died  in  exile. 
Guericke,  of  Halle,  ministered  to  a  small 
company  of  Lutherans  in  his  own  house, 
and  was  for  that  deprived  of  his  professor- 
ship. Many  clergymen  were  imprisoned. 
After  1840  these  harsh  measures  were  in- 
termitted, and  the  king  consented  to  the 
formation  of  a  Lutheran  Church,  which 
was  constituted  in  1841.  Then  there  were 
three  churches  instead  of  two.  And  yet 
there  was  something  noble  in  the  thought 
of  the  Prussian  king  in  consolidating  the 
churches  of  his  dominions,  thus  facing  a 


144  cnuncn  unity 

Catholic  unity  with  a  Protestant  unity, 
and  there  was  something  catholic  and 
liberal  in  the  way  in  which  this  was  car- 
ried out.  Neither  party  was  required  to 
renounce  any  essential  doctrines.1 

An  irenic  movement  which  has  affected 
the  ecclesiastical  life  of  Scotland,  and 
thence  of  the  world,  was  that  which 
brought  together  the  great  churches,  —  the 
United  Secession  Church  of  Scotland  and 
the  smaller  and  yet  influential  church,  the 
Relief  Church.2  The  spirit  of  the  Re- 
lief Church  was  eminently  catholic.  Its 
founder,  Gillespie,  had  been  trained  by 
Doddridge,  and  he,  Gillespie,  could  say, 
"  I  hold  communion  with  all  that  visibly 
hold  the  Head,  and  with  such  only,"  a 
sentiment  which  reminds  one  of  the 
famous  declaration  of  his  great  contem- 
porary, "Wesley,  who  said,  "I  desire  to 
form   a   league,    offensive    and   defensive, 

1  Kurtz,  Ch.  Hist.,  Macpherson's  tr.  iii.  178  ff . ;  Ha- 
genbach,  Ch.  Hist.,  18th  and  19th  Cents.,  Hurst's  tr.,  ii. 
350  ff.    For  later  separations,  see  Kurtz,  iii.  280  ff. 

2  It  is  not  necessary  now  to  go  into  the  story  of  the 
origin  of  these  churches.  Dr.  William  M.  Taylor  has 
given  a  very  clear  statement  in  his  article  on  the  United 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland  in  the  Schaff-Herzog 
Encyclopaedia,  iii.  901  ff. 


IRE  NIC  MOVEMENTS  145 

with  every  follower  of  Christ."  In  1847 
the  union  of  these  two  churches  was  ef- 
fected with  great  enthusiasm.  The  United 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland  has  been 
one  of  the  most  aggressive  and  spiritual 
churches  of  Scotland.  In  187G  the  con- 
gregations of  this  church  in  England 
united  with  the  English  Presbyterian 
Church,  making  the  Presbyterian  Church 
of  England.  In  1852  one  of  the  Seces- 
sion churches  of  Scotland  —  that  in  which 
Dr.  Thomas  McCrie  was  the  leading  light 
—  united  with  the  Free  Church  of  Scot- 
land, and  in  1876  the  Reformed  Presby- 
terian [Cameronian]  Church  —  or  a  large 
majority  of  it  —  also  joined  its  fortunes 
with  the  Free  Church.  Although  there 
have  been  strong  counter  currents  driving 
the  Scottish  Christians  apart,  there  have 
been  also  strong  centripetal  movements 
bringing  them  together.  For  ten  years 
negotiations  were  carried  on  by  the  Free 
Church  between  herself  and  the  Reformed, 
the  United  and  the  English,  Presbyterian 
churches  with  a  view  to  union.  But  a 
small  minority  threatened  to  secede  from 
the  Free  Church  if  the  project  was  carried 
through,    and    it   was   wisely   abandoned. 

10 


146  cnuRcn  unity 

The  General  Assembly  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland  has  formally  approached  every 
Presbyterian  Church  in  Scotland  with  the 
expression  of  her  "  hearty  Avillingness  and 
desire  to  take  all  possible  steps,  consistent 
with  the  maintenance  of  an  establishment 
of  religion,  to  promote  the  union  of  such 
Churches."  Her  efforts  have  as  yet  proved 
fruitless,  but  we  must  echo  the  words  of 
the  Rev.  Pearson  McAdam  Muir,  in  his 
admirable  brief  history  of  the  Church  of 
Scotland,  that  "  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  it 
is  impossible  to  find  a  basis  of  agreement 
on  which,  without  abandonment  of  principle 
or  compromise  of  honor  on  either  side,  the 
now  opposing  communions  may  take  their 
stand,  and  thus  avert  a  long,  unhappy,  and 
disgraceful  strife." 1 

In  speaking  of  Scotch  Presbyterianism 
we  naturally  think  of  the  daughter  on  this 
side  of  the  water.  In  1837  the  Presby- 
terian Church  of  the  United  States  was 
unfortunately  broken  into  two  divisions  — 
commonly  called  the  Old  School  and  the 
New  School.  But  it  was  impossible  that 
churches  having  the  same  creed  and  dis- 

i  The  Church  of  Scotland,  Edinb.  and  N.  Y.  1892, 
p.  94. 


1RENIC  MOVEMENTS  1-17 

cipline  and  not  divided  by  any  profound 
sectional  and  political  feeling  could  remain 
forever  apart.  A  new  generation  came  that 
knew  but  little  and  cared  less  about  the 
old  causes  of  strife.  Churches  and  pastors 
united  in  the  ordinary  ways  of  fraternal 
intercourse.  Then  the  mighty  struggle  for 
the  Union  baptized  the  northern  churches 
into  a  oneness  of  feeling.  Patriotism  be- 
came the  hand-maid  of  religion.  Why 
should  not  the  Church  be  one  as  the 
nation  is  one?  In  1862  the  Old  School 
Assembly  proposed  a  stated  annual  and 
friendly  interchange  of  commissioners  be- 
tween the  two  General  Assemblies.  This 
was  met  by  a  hearty  response  in  the  friend- 
liest spirit  by  the  New  School  Assembly. 
At  a  meeting  of  the  Old  School  General 
Assembly  at  Newark  in  1864,  a  number  of 
ministers  and  laymen  met  together  to  con- 
sider organic  union.  This  non-official  body 
adopted  a  statement  in  winch,  among  other 
tilings,  they  said :  — 

"  It  is  believed  that  the  great  majority  in 
each  branch  sincerely  receive  and  adopt  the 
Confession  of  Faith,  as  containing  the  system 
of  doctrine  taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
and  approve  the  same  government  and  dis- 


148  CUURCII    UNITY 

cipline.  On  this  basis  we  may  reunite,  mutu- 
ally regarding  and  treating  the  office-bearers 
and  church  courts  of  each  branch  as  co-ordi- 
nate elements  in  the  reconstruction.  There 
are  difficulties  in  the  way  of  repairing  the 
breaches  of  Zion,  which  must  be  met  and 
overcome  by  well-considered  methods,  and  in 
a  spirit  of  forbearance  and  prudence.  Re- 
union cannot  be  accomplished,  nor  is  it  to  be 
desired  without  the  restoration  of  a  spirit  of 
unity  and  fraternity.  We  believe  this  spirit 
exists  and  is  constantly  increasing.  That 
which  should  first  engage  the  attention  of  the 
friends  of  reunion  should  be  to  find  out  how 
far  unity  of  sentiment  and  kindness  of  feel- 
ing prevail." 

The  same"  year  at  Dayton,  Ohio,  that 
great  scholar  and  irenic  spirit  of  whom  not 
only  Union  Seminary  bnt  the  whole  Amer- 
ican Church  has  reason  to  be  proud,  Dr. 
Henry  B.  Smith,  as  retiring  Moderator  of 
the  New  School  Assembly,  preached  a  ser- 
mon in  which  he  presented  the  subject  of 
organic  union  "with  singular  felicity  and 
power."  In  1866  both  assemblies  met  at 
St.  Louis.  There  they  mingled  together 
in  religious  worship  and  in  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper.  Nothing  could  with- 
stand the  spirit  that  made  for  fraternity. 


TRENIC  MOVEMENTS  149 

The  Old  School  Assembly  passed  resolu- 
tions looking  toward  organic  union,  and 
appointed  a  committee  to  act  with  a  similar 
committee  of  the  New  School  Assembly. 
It  was  a  thrilling  moment  in  the  history  of 
the  Church  of  God  when  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Phineas  D.  Gurley,  of  Washington,  and 
the  lion.  Lincoln  Clark,  of  Detroit,  walked 
into  the  New  School  Assembly  bearing 
these  overtures.  With  equal  cordiality 
and  readiness  the  New  School  Church  met 
the  advances  of  the  Old  School  brethren. 
In  1867  a  plan  for  reunion  was  submitted 
by  this  committee  to  both  assemblies  for 
discussion  during  another  year.  At  this 
juncture  an  ominous  voice  in  dissent  was 
heard.  In  the  Princeton  Review  for  July, 
1867,  Dr.  Chas.  Hodge  objected  to  the 
plan  on  the  ground  that  the  New  School 
Church  does  not  now  receive  and  never 
has  received  all  the  doctrines  of  the  Cal- 
vinistic  system  in  their  integrity,  and  that, 
therefore,  union  would  not  only  be  inexpe- 
dient, but  morally  wrong.  This  was  met 
by  an  article  in  the  American  Presbyter- 
ian Review  for  October,  1867,  by  Dr. 
Henry  B.  Smith,  denying  this  charge,  and 
attempting  to  prove  that  the  sense  in  which 


150  CHURCH  UNITY 

the  New  School  Church  received  the  Con- 
fession was  precisely  that  claimed  as  the 
true  one  by  Dr.  Hodge ;  viz.,  the  Calvin- 
istic  or  Reformed.  Both  articles  were 
published  in  pamphlet  form,  and  scattered 
far  and  wide,  and  both,  says  the  late  Dr. 
Wm.  Adams,  "  tended  to  the  same  result,  — 
the  conviction  of  the  substantial  oneness  of 
both  bodies  in  the  receiving  and  adopting 
the  Confession  of  Faith  in  the  true,  honest, 
liberal,  common-sense  and  Presbyterian 
significance  of  those  words."  The  bases 
for  reunion  as  amended  were  adopted  by 
the  assemblies  in  New  York  in  May,  1869, 
and  were  submitted  to  the  presbyteries. 
At  an  adjourned  meeting  of  the  two  as- 
semblies the  next  November  in  Pittsburg, 
the  returns  from  the  presbyteries  showed 
an  overwhelming  majority  in  favor  of  re- 
union, and  in  May,  1870,  the  first  reunited 
assembly  met  in  Philadelphia  amid  the 
rejoicings  of  innumerable  saints  and  the 
congratulations  of  sister  churches  all  over 
the  world.1 

1  Presbyterian  Reunion  Memorial  Volume,  N.  Y. 
1870,  esp.  pp.  246-406.  This  volume  gives  all  the  facts 
and  documents,  and  selections  from  addresses,  etc.  See 
also  J.  F.  Stearns,  Historical  Sketch  of  the  Reunion,  in 
the  American  Presbyterian  Review,  July,  1869. 


IRENIC  MOVEMENTS  151 

Another  great  union  movement  is  that 
which  brought  together  all  the  Methodist 
churches  in  Canada.     In  1873  there  were 
six    Methodist   churches    in  Canada;    the 
Wesleyan  Methodist  Church  in  the  Eastern 
Provinces,  the  Wesleyan  Methodist  Church 
in   Ontario   and    Quebec,  —  two  churches 
historically  and  organically  separate,  —  the 
Methodist    New    Connection    Church    in 
Canada,  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
in  Canada,  the  Primitive  Methodist  Church 
in  Canada,  and  the  Bible  Christian  Church. 
The  note  for  the  bringing  together  of  these 
bodies    was    struck    by   Rev.  Dr.   E.  H. 
Dewart,  in  1870.     In  the  fall  of  1870  an 
informal  meeting  of  representatives  of  dif- 
ferent  Methodist  bodies  was  held  at  the 
house  of  the  editor  of  the  "  Christian  Guar- 
dian," Dr.  Dewart,  in  Toronto.     From  the 
beginning  this  powerful  journal  threw  the 
whole  weight  of  its  influence  on  this  side. 
In  1873  a  plan  for  union  was  adopted  by 
the   Wesleyan    Methodist    Conference   of 
Upper   and   Lower   Canada,  by  the    New 
Connection  Methodist  Conference,  and  by 
the   Wesleyan    Methodist    Conference   of 
the  Eastern  Provinces.     The  first  united 
General  Conference  was  held  in  Toronto, 


152  CHURCH   UNITY 

September,  1874,  —  the  first  time  in  history 
when  laymen  were  accorded  equal  repre- 
sentation in  the  chief  court  of  any  large 
Methodist  Church.  The  name  chosen  for 
the  united  Church  was  the  Methodist 
Church  of  Canada.  This  irenic  result  was 
an  object  lesson  which  the  other  churches 
could  not  resist.  The  Ecumenical  Con- 
ference in  London  in  1881  intensified  the 
desire  for  union.  In  1881  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  in  Canada,  the  Bible 
Christian  Church,  and  the  Primitive  Meth- 
odist Church  in  Canada,  merged  themselves 
into  the  larger  Church.  Thus,  where  there 
had  been  six,  there  was  henceforth  to  be 
but  one  Methodist  Church  in  Canada.  A 
grand  example  has  in  this  way  been  set  for 
other  Methodist  churches  to  follow.  Eng- 
land is  looking  in  the  same  direction.1 

It  does  not  fall  within  our  scope  to  treat 
the  union  movements  in  the  Anglican, 
Greek,  Old  Catholic,  and  Roman  churches, 
tending  toward  a  union  of  one  with  an- 
other, or  any  one  with  all.  This  would 
form  a  most  interesting  chapter,  but  it 
would  require  more  time  than  is  accorded 
to  this  lecture. 

1  Centennial  of  Canadian  Methodism,  Toronto,  1891. 
This  volume  gives  full  historical  information. 


IRENIC  MOVEMENTS  1 53 

Ironic  movements  of  great  moment  have 
been  those  which  issued  in  the  formation 
of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  in  1846;  of  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  in  1804 ; 
the  American  Bible  Society  in  1816 ;  the 
proposals  of  the  House  of  Bishops  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  1886,  which 
were  reaffirmed  by  the  Pan- Anglican  Coun- 
cil of  Bishops  at  Lambeth  Palace  in  1888; 
the  proposals  of  a  more  catholic  type  sent 
forth  by  the  Congregational  churches  of 
the  United  States  in  1895;  the  formation  of 
the  Brotherhood  of  Christian  Unity,  of 
which  Theodore  F.  Seward,  Esq.,  is  the 
leading  spirit,  in  1893 ;  and  the  formation 
of  the  League  of  Catholic  Unity  in  1895. 
These  are  all  parts  of  a  great  and  wide- 
spread movement  which  will  not  fail  nor 
be  discouraged  until  the  churches  of  God 
are  not  only  one  in  love  and  faith  and  hope, 
but  one  in  a  confederated,  or  united,  or  or- 
ganic life.  When  the  people  on  a  certain 
vessel  skirting  the  South  American  coast 
were  dying  of  thirst  and  cried  for  water  to 
those  in  a  boat  passing  near  by,  the  an- 
swer came  back:  "Throw  down  your 
buckets  into  the  water."  The  sufferers 
were  sailing  in  the  mouth  of  the  broad 


154  CHURCH  UNITY 

Amazon  without  knowing  it.  The  spirit 
of  union  is  in  the  air  we  breathe,  and 
throbs  in  the  tides  over  which  we  float  from 
the  nineteenth  century  into  the  calmer  and 
sweeter  waters  of  the  twentieth. 


IV 


THE 

CHICAGO -LAMBETH   ARTICLES 

By  the  Eight  Rev.  HENRY  CODMAN  POTTER, 
D.D.,  LL.D., 

Bishoj)  of  New  York 


THE 
CHICAGO-LAMBETH  ARTICLES 


T 


HE  invitation  which  brings  me  here 
this  evening  named  as  the  topic  for 
my  consideration  what  are  known  as  the 
Chicago-Lambeth  Articles.  Those  articles, 
however,  have  formed  the  subject  of  dis- 
cussions on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  for 
nearly  ten  years,  and  I  should  be  a  far 
bolder  and  more  self-confident  person  than 
I  am  if  I  could  hope  to  contribute  to  what 
has  already  been  said  in  regard  to  them 
any  very  helpful  or  substantial  word. 
More  than  this,  it  may  be  well  for  me  to 
say  at  the  outset,  that  the  recent  action, 
or  rather  non-action,  of  the  Chief  Council 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  with 
reference  to  such  constitutional  or  canoni- 
cal enactment  as  would  make  those  arti- 
cles more  speedily  or  practically  effective, 
may  well  discourage  any  one  whose  rela- 


158  CIIURCU   UNITY 

tions  are  such  as  mine  from  urging  their 
consideration  or  pressing  their  acceptance 
upon  others. 

It  would,  indeed,  be  easy  enough  to  an- 
swer to  this  last  criticism,  that  any  great 
movement  advances  usually  by  more  or 
less  unequal,  or  apparently  unequal,  steps. 
An  idea  is  broached,  a  general  statement 
is  made,  a  basis  of  action  is  proposed,  which 
to  many  earnest  minds  seems  precisely 
what  they  have  been  waiting  for.  Over 
against  them  as  they  look  out  upon  the 
future  of  some  great  interest  or  institution 
there  is  a  situation  which,  in  many  of  its 
most  obvious  aspects,  is  full  of  perplexity 
and  peril.  It  cannot  be  denied,  I  think, 
that  this  is  a  widespread  sentiment  with 
those  Avho  love  our  common  Master,  and 
who  desire  the  spread  of  his  kingdom,  as 
to-day  they  look  out  upon  the  manifold 
divisions  of  Christendom.  A  late  issue  of 
a  leading  foreign  ecclesiastical  journal  pub- 
lishes the  names  and  the  number  of  new 
sects  that  have  come  into  existence  and 
have  been  formally  registered  in  Great 
Britain  alone  during  the  past  year.  I  have 
not  the  record  at  hand,  but  there  were  at 
least  some  half-dozen  of    them,  and  they 


THE   CHICAGO-LAMBETH  ARTICLES     159 

represent  the  strangest  and  most  eccentrie 
vagaries  of  belief  and  practice.  I  shall 
not  rehearse  them  here ;  but  one  in  read- 
ing them  could  not  resist  the  exclamation, 
"  Is  tins,  after  all,  the  only  fruit  of  all  our 
strivings  after  Christian  unity?  Is  dis- 
integration and  not  re-integration  to  be  the 
history  of  all  our  efforts  to  unify  the  dis- 
cordant voices  that  profess  the  faith  of 
Jesus  Christ?"  And  when  one  adds  to 
this  the  fact  to  which  I  have  just  alluded, 
—  that  a  communion  which,  by  its  synodi- 
cal  declarations,  has  taken  a  foremost  place 
in  the  movement  for  the  reunion  of  Chris- 
tendom refuses,  or  seems  to  refuse,  such 
particular  action  as  in  one  especial  aspect 
of  it,  at  any  rate,  would  appear  to  have 
promised  for  those  declarations  some  prac- 
tical force  and  efficacy,  the  situation  be- 
comes not  alone  anxious  and  perplexing, 
but  also  not  a  little  discouraging. 

For  one,  I  am  prepared  unreservedly  to 
admit  the  apparent  force  of  such  reason- 
ing ;  but  it  must  be  qualified,  I  think,  here 
as  always,  by  the  general  consideration  to 
which  I  have  just  referred.  No  great  move- 
ment such  as  that  for  the  reunion  of  Chris- 
tendom is  at  all  likely,  any  more  than  any 


160  CIIURCU   UNITY 

other  great  movement  which  has  to  steer  its 
way  amid  the  ignorance,  the  prejudice,  the 
ecclesiastical  antipathies  that  are  common 
to  human  nature,  to  go  forward  without 
considerable  and  frequent  discouragements. 
We  have  to  reckon  with  conscientious  con- 
victions, however  ignorant;  we  have  to 
reckon  with  selfish  interests,  however  care- 
fully disguised ;  and  most  of  all,  I  think,  we 
have  to  reckon  with  that  quite  unconscious 
pride  of  infallibility,  of  which  Latin  Chris- 
tianity is  not,  it  is  to  be  feared,  the  sole 
and  exclusive  depositary.  "  The  Reform- 
ation," says  a  large-minded  thinker  of 
our  own  generation,1  "had  rid  itself  of 
an  ecclesiastical  falsehood ;  it  had  not  yet 
seen  the  scholastic  root  of  much  of  the 
doctrinal  system  that  it  established.  It 
put  the  idols  of  its  schools  in  place  of  the 
idols  of  the  altar.  It  had  not  yet  learned 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  not  a  meta- 
physical notion;  it  had  not  yet  learned 
tolerance  of  opinions  and  essential  unity 
among  differences.  This  spirit  was  the 
parent  of  its  virtues  and  vices  together. 
The  Lutheran  was  conservative,  intellec- 

1  Dr.  Edward  A.  Washburn,  Epochs  in  Church  His- 
tory, p.  91. 


THE    CIIICAGO-LAMBETII  ARTICLES    1G1 

tual,  but  without  sympathy  with  any  outside 
his  evangelical  communion.  Calvin  was 
logician,  scholar,  hero ;  but  he  could  banish 
Castalio  or  burn  Servetus,  like  the  malleus 
hereticorum  of  past  time,  and  rule  Geneva 
as  if  it  were  a  cloister  of  Benedict.  His 
spirit  passed  into  his  disciples ;  it  created 
Puritans,  brave,  conscientious,  pure,  yet 
men  who  could,  like  Colonel  Gardiner, 
look  at  an  Arminian  as  Anti-Christ,  and 
think  a  surplice  a  rag  of  unrighteousness." 
Undoubtedly,  since  those  days  the  animosi- 
ties of  differing  Christians  have  greatly 
softened,  but  it  would  be  a  "  fond  conceit " 
to  imagine  that  they  had  ceased  to  exist. 
And,  even  if  they  had,  there  would  still 
remain  those  other  grounds  of  difference 
which  represent  profound  conscientious 
convictions,  —  convictions  which  if  they 
ever  yield,  must  yield,  not  to  the  touch  of 
sentiment,  but  to  a  vision,  at  once  clearer 
and  larger,  of  what  is  essential  truth.  It 
is  because,  whatever  may  be  the  discourage- 
ments of  the  hour,  I  believe  in  the  growth 
of  such  a  vision  and  of  the  influence  and 
the  temper  that  best  serve  to  prepare  the 
way  for  it,  that,  for  one,  I  am  persuaded 
that  what  is  known  as  the  Lambeth  Dec- 
11 


162  CHURCH   UNITY 

laration  has  not  yet  done  its  whole  work 
for  the  cause  of  Christian  unity ;  and  that 
those  who  have  welcomed  it  as  a  true 
irenicon  amid  the  divisions  of  our  modern 
Christianity  have  not  been  misled  by  an 
iridescent  dream  nor  the  ignis  fatuus  of 
an  impossible  theory.  Let  me  name  the 
reasons  that  lead  me  to  this  conviction. 

I.  And  first  among  them  I  would  put 
the  deepening  conviction  among  all  Chris- 
tian people  of  the  evils  of  division.  If 
what  is  known  as  the  Chicago-Lambeth 
Declaration  has  had  no  other  value,  it  will 
always  be,  I  think,  a  cause  for  profound 
thankfulness  on  the  part  of  those  who  were 
first  of  all  concerned  in  it  that  it  stands 
distinctly  for  that.  Some  of  us  can  very 
well  remember  a  mode  of  argument  which 
was  common  enough  among  our  fathers, 
and  which  went  to  show  that  the  so-called 
divisions  of  Christendom  were  on  the  whole 
a  distinct  advantage  to  the  cause  of  Christ 
and  the  growth  of  his  kingdom  among 
men.  I  do  not  hear  that  argument  any 
more.  Dismissing,  if  one  chooses,  what 
has  been  called  the  vulgar  and  sordid  criti- 
cism of  our  ecclesiastical  divisions  which 
shows  how  they  involve  an  enormous  waste 


THE   CHICAGO-LAMBETH  ARTICLES     1G3 

of  men,  and  money,  and  resources  of  every 
sort,  there  still  remain  other  and  graver 
considerations  concerning  which  I  thank 
God  there  is  now  a  far  larger  concurrence. 
The  favorite  image  which  likened  the 
various  sects  and  fellowships  into  which 
Christendom  is  divided  to  so  many  regi- 
ments or  battalions  in  a  great  army,  must 
needs  face  and  explain,  if  it  can,  the  wide- 
spread hostility  of  those  battalions  to  each 
other.  The  fact,  of  which  any  one  familiar 
with  the  history  of  smaller  or  larger  com- 
munities may  easily  assure  himself  if  he 
chooses,  that  quite  as  often  as  otherwise 
the  growth  of  any  given  communion  is 
simply  at  the  expense  of  some  other  close 
beside  it ;  —  the  further  influence  of  a  con- 
dition of  things  which  issues  too  often  in 
creating  in  the  minds  of  Christian  people 
an  attitude  of  which  a  critical  and  some- 
what thrifty  balancing  of  the  claims  of 
rival  fellowships  is  often  a  predominant 
characteristic,  —  the  wretched  heartburn- 
ings, rivalries,  misrepresentations,  and 
animosities  which  are  often  the  most 
conspicuous  fruits  of  our  divided  Chris- 
tendom,—  these  are  facts  which  we  can- 
not longer  deny  and  winch  we  attempt  in 


164  cnuRcn  unity 

vain  to  disregard.  As  one  consequence  of 
them  I  think  we  must  all  be  conscious  of 
the  existence  of  what  may  be  called  a  kind 
of  "  competitive  Christianity,"  in  which  the 
strife  is  not  to  "provoke  one  another  to 
love  and  to  good  works,"  but  to  provide 
such  superior  "  attractions  "  as  are  in 
danger,  often,  of  turning  the  sanctuary 
into  a  place  of  more  or  less  distinctly 
theatrical  display,  and  the  worship  and 
the  teaching  into  a  practical  exhibition 
of  the  shopkeepers'  legend,  "  We  study  to 
please."  What  a  pitiful  travesty  of  the 
august  offices  of  religion,  and  of  the  solemn 
business  of  the  sacred  ministry !  And  yet, 
there  are  those  who  do  not  hesitate  to  de- 
fend it  as  imperatively  demanded  by  what 
they  are  wont  to  call  "  the  exigencies  of  the 
situation."  It  is  because  of  this,  I  am  pro- 
foundly persuaded,  that  so  many  devout 
minds  are  turned  to-day  to  consider  that 
essential  evil  which  is  the  source  of  such  a 
condition  of  things,  —  the  evil  of  our  mani- 
fold divisions. 

II.  Again:  there  is  yet  another  con- 
sideration that  with  many  is  even  more 
influential  to-day  in  the  hopeful  direction 
I  have  indicated.   When  one  comes  to  read 


THE  CIUCAGO-LAUBETII  ARTICLES    165 

the  story  of  the  infant  Church  as  he  finds  it 

told  in  the  New  Testament,  he  very  Boon 
becomes  sensible  of  what  I  may  call  — 
using  the  word  in  the  sense  in  which 
one  uses  it  of  a  poem  or  a  picture, 
—  its  tender  and  sympathetic  atmo- 
sphere. There  were  divisions  in  the 
early  Church  as  there  were  heresies  and 
rivalries  ;  but,  brooding  over  all,  and 
finding  expression  in  utterances  of  singu- 
lar love  and  devotion,  in  acts  of  rare  and 
constant  self-sacrifice,  there  was  an  atmos- 
phere which  revealed  a  common  purpose, 
which  prized  the  common  fellowship,  which 
strove  for  the  common  good.  It  breaks  out 
in  such  expressions  as  those  of  the  great 
apostle  who,  speaking  of  those  others 
who  preached  Christ  from  motives  more 
or  less  single  or  worthy,  yet  exclaims, 
"  But  every  way  Christ  is  preached,  and 
therein  I  do  rejoice,  yea,  and  will  rejoice." 
Have  we  ever  considered  how  tremendous 
must  have  been  the  attractive  power  of  this 
pervading  sentiment  of  loving  and  self- 
\  effacing  enthusiasm  —  oiL_a  spirit  that 
could  not  forget  .£hak_iha  whole  was 
larger  than  any  part,  and  that  it  was  for 
the    triumph  of    the  whole  that  all  alike 


1G6  CHURCH   UNITY 

were  to  strive  ?  Here  at  last  was  some- 
thing which  put  mere  selfish  gain,  or 
success,  or  triumph  in  its  rightful  and 
inferior  place.  Here  at  last  was  some- 
thing which  thrilled  the  hearts  of  those 
whom  it  had  taken  captive  with  a  love 
larger  than  their  own  race,  or  land,  or 
family.  Here  was  something  which,  speak- 
ing of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  made  it  easier 
for  men  to  believe  in  it,  because  they  saw 
that  one  of  its  chiefest  fruits  was  the  true 
brotherhood  of  man.  How  far  our  modern 
sectarianism  has  produced  any  such  effect 
upon  Christian  disciples  themselves,  I  will 
not  undertake  to  say,  —  but  how  far  that 
same  temper  of  dissension,  division,  mutual 
hatreds  and  hostilities  has  been  instru- 
mental in  discouraging  the  approaches  and 
chilling  the  enthusiasm  of  people  outside 
of  any  Christian  fellowship  is  a  matter 
concerning  which  I  am  persuaded  thought- 
ful Christian  people  are  not  longer  in  any 
.doubt.  They  see  in  it  something  that,  now< 
/  at  length,  must  be  reckoned  with,  and  they 
I  are  turning  with  a  concern  daily  more  eager 
I  and  anxious  to  find,  if  they  may,  its  remedy. 
"III.  Yet  another  influence,  which  has 
been  most  graciously   and  powerfully  at 


THE   CHICAGO-LAMBETH  ARTICLES     lf>7 

work  among  us  in  the  interest  of  a  reunited 
Christendom,  lias  beep  fee  deeper  and  mora 

intelligent  study  of  the  Holy  Scriptuivs. 
There  is  no  more  favorite  method  with  un- 
belief, when  it  would  discredit  the  religion 
of  Jesus  Christ,  than  to  point  out  how  its 
disciples,  differing  as  they  do  concerning 
questions  which  are,  or  which  have  been, 
claimed  to  be  of  the  most  vital  importance, 
have  been  wont  to  appeal  to  the  same  Book, 
and  often,  strangely  enough,  to  the  same 
words  in  that  Book.  That  meagre  and 
superficial  reading  of  the  Sacred  Writings 
which  has  dealt  with  them  as  one  would 
deal  with  a  fetish  or  a  charm,  —  which  has 
led  one,  for  instance,  to  submit  the  gravest 
questions,  in  some  moment  of  supreme  per- 
plexity, to  the  answer  to  be  gotten  out  of 
the  Bible  by  opening  the  volume  at  random, 
—  this  it  must  be  owned,  and  that  too  often 
by  those  .who  ought  to  have  been  examples 
in  another  and  more  excellent  way,  has 
been  a  characteristic  of  men's  use  of  Holy 
Scripture  in  all  circumstances,  and  in  none 
more  frequently  than  in  those  which  are 
concerned  with  matters  of  theological  or 
ecclesiastical  controversy.  That  the  Bible 
should  be  treated  as  literature ;  that  men 


168  CHURCH   UNITY 

should  he  scrupulously  careful  always  to 
turn  upon  it  those  lights  which  come  from 
a  knowledge  of  the  times  in  which,  and  the 
men  by  whom,  it  was  written  ;  that  its  right 
interpretation  must  depend  among  other 
things  upon  the  growth  of  a  language,  the 
progress  of  a  civilization,  the  influence  of 
an  environment;  and  that,  until  we  have 
inquired  concerning  these,  the  last  thing 
that  we  are  warranted  in  doing  concerning 
a  certain  text  or  book,  or  institution,  is  to 
dogmatize  about  it.  This  conclusion,  which 
has  dawned  so  late  and  slowly  upon  Chris- 
tendom, is  coming  more  and  more,  thank 
God,  to  be  a  dominant  conviction.  Whether 
or  no  there  is  a  new  spirit  in  the  pulpit, 
there  is  a  new  situation  in  the  pews. 
Never  was  there  a  generation  in  which, 
notwithstanding  all  the  froth  and  frippery 
of  our  lighter  literature,  there  was  so  large 
a  proportion  of  thoughtful  men  —  and  of 
women  too  —  who  were  reading  and  think- 
ing and  inquiring  for  themselves  concern- 
ing Holy  Scripture.  I  mentioned  not  long 
ago,  in  a  quite  promiscuous  company,  Canon 
Mozley's  "Ruling  Ideas  of  Early  Ages," 
and  I  confess  I  was  genuinely  surprised  to 
find  how  many  of  those  present  had  both 


THE  CHICAGO-LAMBETH  ARTICLES    169 

seen  and  read  it.     When  we  are  making  a 

clever  argument  for  our  little  view  of 
Apostolic  Succession,  or  of  Baptism  by  one 
mode  alone,  or  of  the  primitive  form  of 
Church  government,  or  of  some  fragmentary 
aspect  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  it 
will  be  well  for  us  to  remember  that,  sitting 
in  the  pews  there  may  easily  be  some  quiet 
man  or  woman  who  watches  our  cheap  and 
mechanical  manipulation  of  isolated  texts, 
or  our  utterly  unscholarly  reading  of  some 
disputed  passage,  with  a  silent  surprise,  in 
which  humor  and  sorrow  are  mixed  in  equal 
proportions. 

Such  men  and  women  are,  though  they 
know  it  not,  the  heralds  of  a  new  era. 
That  era,  however  superstition,  or  ignor- 
ance, or  inherited  prejudices  may  hinder  it, 
will  bring  with  it  a  new  and  nobler  concep- 
tion of  the  office  of  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
and.  of  the  way  in  which  men  are  to  deal 
with  them.  And  when  it  shall  come,  one 
of  its  best  fruits  will  be  that  new  and  larger 
light  in  winch  will  be  set  this  whole  subject 
of  Christian  unity.  Heretofore  we  have 
magnified  our  differences;  henceforward 
we  shall  rather  magnify  our  agreements ; 
and  reading  the  story  of  the  dawning  life 

\ 


170  cnuRcn  unity 

of  the  Church  in  the  light  of  those  various 
faiths  and  civilizations  and  philosophies 
amid  which  it  came  to  have  its  beginning, 
we  shall  see  how  Catholic  and  not  Angli- 
can, or  Roman,  or  Genevan,  was  its  basis, 
and  how  heavenly  and  not  earthly  was  its 
spirit. 

IV.  And  this  brings  me  to  another  con- 
sideration which  demands  our  grateful 
recognition  in  connection  with  the  subject 
of  Christian  unity,  and  that  is  what  I  may 

\  call  the  growth  of   the   historic   instinct. 

I  No  one  can  review  the  origin  of  those  vari- 
ous religious  bodies,  which  have  arisen 
since  the  Reformation,  without  recognizing 
how  significantly  they  witness  to  an  awak- 
ening of  some  of  the  deepest  spiritual  in- 
stincts in  those  who  were  responsible  for 
their  inception,  and,  no  less,  to  a  profound 
conviction  that  some  one  aspect  of  Christian 
faith  or  practice  was,  more  than  any  other, 
or  all  others,  essential  to  the  integrity  of 
the  Christian  fellowship.  But  from  such 
a  position  the  step  was  not  always  a  long 
one  to  another  and  very  different  position,  — 
a  position  which  substantially  disassociated 
them  from  other  and  no  less  essential  char- 
acteristics of  the  Christian  Faith  and  Order, 


THE   CHICAGO  LAMBETH  ARTICLES    171 

and  which  thus,  ere  long,  maimed  that 
Faith  and  practically  disowned  that  Order 
in  the  interest  of  a  single  dogma.  In  this 
aspect  of  it,  the  history  of  the  disintegration 
of  Christendom  is  at  once  startling  and 
tragic.  The  historic  Unity  was  openly  and 
recklessly  flouted.  The  historic  Faith  was 
at  once  narrowed  and  perverted ;  the  his- 
toric Order,  corrupt,  tyrannical,  grotesquely 
distorted  often  in  its  practical  exhibitions, 
was  dises teemed  and  finally  disowned.  And 
so  there  has  come  to  pass  the  spectacle  of  a 
divided  Christendom,  of  a  household  no 
longer  at  unity  in  itself,  rent  and  torn  with 
a  thousand  frivolous  dissensions,  a  spectacle 
of  blindness  and  self-will  for  the  warning 
of  all  future  generations.  But  along  with 
such  a  condition  of  things,  or  rather  as  a 
consequence  of  it,  there  has  come  the  awak- 
ening of  another  and  very  different  spirit. 
That  study  of  Holy  Scripture,  to  which  I 
have  just  referred,  and  along  with  it  of  the 
records  of  those  times  which  followed  most 
closely  upon  the  days  and  the  acts  of  the 
apostles,  has  been  fruitful  to  our  own  gen- 
eration as  to  none  other  that  has  preceded 
it.  The  historic  method,  which  has  been 
found  so  helpful  in  other  departments  of 


172  cnuRcn  unity 

inquiry,  has  been  invoked,  as  never  before, 
in  our  own.  I  may  not  venture  here  to 
recite,  even  in  the  most  superficial  way,  the 
story  of  its  achievements,  but  I  venture  to 
think  that  the  longer  and  more  carefully 
they  are  studied  in  connection  with  the 
subject  of  Christian  unity,  the  more  abun- 
dantly will  they  vindicate  the  positions 
assumed  in  what  are  known  among  us  as 
the  Chicago-Lambeth  Articles. 

What,  now,  were  these  positions  ?  Let 
me  venture,  at  the  risk  of  repeating  what 
may  be  abundantly  familiar  to  most  of  you, 
to  recite  not  only  the  terms  of  the  "  Quad- 
rilateral "  itself  (as  for  convenience  it  has 
been  called),  but  those  others  by  which  it 
was  introduced.  It  was  in  the  General 
Convention  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church,  in  the  year  1886,  that  the  House  of 
Bishops  united  in  these  words : 

"In  pursuance  of  the  action  taken  in 
1853  for  the  healing  of  the  divisions  of 
Christians  in  our  own  land,  and  in  1880 
for  the  protection  and  encouragement  of  those 
who  had  withdrawn  from  the  Roman  obedi- 
ence, we  here  assembled  in  Council,  assembled 
as  Bishops  of  the  Church  of  God,  do  hereby 
solemnly  declare  to  all  whom  it  may  concern, 


THE   CniCAGO-LAMBETII  ARTICLES     173 

and  especially  to  our  fellow  Christians  of  tit e 
different  communions  in  this  land,  who,  in 
their  several  spheres,  have  contended  for  the 
religion  of  Christ: 

"  (1)  Our  earnest  desire  that  the  Saviour's 
Prayer  '  that  we  cell  may  he  One '  may,  in  its 
deepest  aud  truest  sense,  be  speedily  fulfilled." 

This  plainly  enough  admits  that  what- 
ever inner  and  spiritual  unity  among  differ- 
ing Christians  might  exist,  that  unity  for 
which  Christ  prayed  —  unity  "  in  its  deep- 
est and  truest  sense  "  —  did  not  exist. 

"(2)  TJiat  we  believe  that  cell  who  have 
been  duly  baptised  ivith  Wetter  in  the  name 
of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  are  members  of  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church." 

This  no  less  clearly  affirmed  or  implied 
that  a  sole  and  supreme  claim  to  member- 
ship in  the  Holy  Catholic  Chinch  could  not 
be  made  by  any  one  branch  of  that  church, 
to  the  exclusion  of  any  baptized  person, 
even  though  not  of  its  own  fellowship. 

"  (3)  That  in  things  of  hitman  choice, 
relating  to  modes  of  worship),  and  discipline, 
or  to  traditional  customs,  this  Church  is 
ready,  in  the  spirit  of  love  and  hitmility,  to 
forego  all  preferences  of  their  own" 


174  CHURCH   UNITY 

This  indicates  a  clear  recognition  of  the 
apostolic  distinction  between  things  of 
primitive  and  permanent  appointment  and 
tilings  ahidfyopa. 

"(4)  That  this  Church  does  not  seek  to 
absorb  other  Communions,  but  rather,  co- 
operating with  them  on  the  basis  of  a  common 
Faith  and  Order  to  discountenance  schism,  to 
heal  the  wounds  of  the  Body  of  Christ,  and 
to  promote  the  charity  which  is  the  chief  of 
Christian  graces  and  the  visible  manifesta- 
tion of  Christ  to  the  world." 

These  words  explicitly  recognize  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  schism ;  but  no  less 
clearly  point  out  that  its  remedy  is  not  to 
be  found  in  a  narrow  and  mechanical  uni- 
formity. And  then  the  Declaration  pro- 
ceeds :  — 

"But,  furthermore,  ice  do  hereby  affirm 
that  the  Christian  Unity  now  so  earnestly 
desired  by  the  Memorialists  (i.  e. ,  those  who 
had  memorialized  the  General  Convention  on 
the  subject  of  Christian  Unity)  can  be  restored 
only  by  the  return  of  all  Christian  Commun- 
ions to  the  principles  of  Unity  exemplified  by 
the  undivided  Catholic  Church  during  the 
first  ages  of  its  existence  ;  which  principles 
we  believe  to  be   the  substantial  deposit  of 


THE   CHICAGO-LAMBETH   ARTICLES     175 

Christian  faith  and  order  committed  by 
Christ  and  His  Apostles  to  the  Church  unto 
the  end  of  the  world,  and  therefore  incapable 
of  compromise  or  surrender  by  those  who  have 
been  ordained  to  be  its  stewards  and  trustees 
for  the  common  and  equal  benefit  of  all  men. 

"  As  inherent  parts  of  this  sacred  deposit, 
and  therefore  as  essential  to  the  restoration  of 
unity  among  divided  branches  of  Christen- 
dom, we  count  the  following,  to  wit :  — 

"(I.)  The  Holy  Scriptures  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  as  the  re- 
vealed Word  of  God. 

"  (II.)  The  Nicene  Creed  as  the  suf- 
ficient   STATEMENT    OF   THE    CHRISTIAN 

Faith. 

"  (III.)  The  two  sacraments,  —  Bap- 
tism and  the  Supper  of  the  Lord, — 
ministered  with  unfailing  use  of 
Christ's  words  of  institution,  and  of 
the  elements  ordained  by  hlm. 

"  (IV.)  The  Historic  Episcopate,  lo- 
cally ADAPTED  IN  THE  METHODS   OF  ITS 

administration  to  the  varying  needs 
of  the  nations  and  peoples  called  of 
God  into  the  Unity  of  His  Church." 

Now  then  it  will  be  seen  that  the  force 
and  meaning  of  these  several  bases  or  con- 


176  cnuRcn  unity 

ditions    of    Christian   unity   turn   largely 
upon  what  is  understood  by  the  preliminary 
phrase  "  the  principles  of  unity  exemplified 
by  the  undivided  Catholic  Church  during 
the  first  ages  of  its  existence."    It  has  been 
just  at  this  point  that  the  growth  among 
us  of  what  I  have  called  the  Historic  In- 
stinct has  been  of  such  great  value,  as  it  is 
destined  to  be,  we  have  reason  to  believe, 
to  an  increasing  degree.     Scholars  in  in- 
creasing numbers  have  turned  to  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  to  the  writings  of  Clement  of 
Rome,  of  Ignatius,  of  Polycarp,  who  all 
three  had  been  disciples  of  one  or  the  other 
of  the  apostles,  and  had  been  made  bishops 
by  them  in  various  cities,  —  to  the  witness 
of  Irenseus,  Bishop  of  Lyons,  of  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  of  Origen,  Cyprian,  Justin 
Martyr,  and  Tertullian,  to  the  teaching  of 
the  Apostolic  Canons,  and  of  the  councils 
of  Nice,  Constantinople,  Ephesus,  Chalce- 
don,   Antioch,    and   Carthage,    and    have 
discovered    running   through   them   all   a 
general  consensus  whose  significance  cannot 
be   mistaken.      "Though   those  to  whom 
authority  in  the  government  of  the  Church 
was  bequeathed  had  to  make  further  ar- 
rangements from  time  to  time  to  meet  the 


THE    CHICAGO-LAMBETH  ARTICLES     177 

exigencies  of  events,  —  the  astonishing  in- 
crease in  number,  the  adaptation  of  the 
Church's  mechanism  to  its  rapidly  multi- 
plying requirements,  the  settlements  of 
differences  that  arose,  and  the  decreeing  of 
fresh  ordinances  from  time  to  time  for  the 
further  preservation  of  order,  the  unity  of 
the  body,  and  the  purity  of  the  faith,"  — 
the  significant  fact  is  that  those  in  such 
authority,  as  Kettlewell  has  pointed  out, 
"scrupulously  kept  to  the  same  lines  as 
had  originally  been  laid  down  and  received 
by  them ;  the  essential  and  fundamental 
principles  and  character  of  the  Constitution 
were  strictly  observed ;  and  no  departure 
from  them  was  permitted.  If  any  attempt 
were  made  to  infringe  upon  them  or  to  dis- 
regard the  ordinances  upon  which  the 
foundations  of  their  government  had  been 
established  it  was  the  duty  and  charge  of 
one  and  all  to  stand  up  for  them  and  to 
resist  any  encroachment  or  violation." 

No  less  clear  has  it  been  to  the  candid 
student  of  ecclesiastical  history  that  this 
primitive  unity  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
rule  and  government  of  the  primitive 
Church  had  pre-eminent  reference  to  three 
things,  —  the  due  appointment  of  rulers, 
12 


178  CIlURCn   UNITY 

the  clue  and  cheerful  submission  of  the 
governed,  and  loyalty  to  scriptural  and 
apostolic  doctrine,  without  additions  or 
perversion.  When  the  Christian  Church 
began  to  lose  these,  she  began  to  lose  the 
secret  alike  of  harmony  and  of  strength. 
Her  hour  of  weakness  came  when  rival 
teachers  and  rival  dogmas  contended  with 
one  another  for  supremacy;  and  when, 
breaking  with  its  historic  past,  Latin  Chris- 
tendom undertook  to  erect  upon  the  ruins 
of  primitive  Christian  unity  the  insolent 
structure  of  the  papacy  the  moment  of  dis- 
solution was  at  hand.  We  deplore  to-day 
the  divisions  of  Christendom,  and  rightly ; 
but  no  such  cleavage  between  primitive 
order  and  modern  Christianity  was  ever 
made  as  was  made  when  Rome  usurped  a 
place  which  her  Lord  had  never  given  her, 
and  so  taught  every  feeblest  and  most  self- 
willed  sect  in  all  the  world  how  to  read 
into  the  Word  of  God  its  own  meaning, 
and  into  the  order  of  his  Church  its  own 
self-seeking  way. 

Our  hope,  nevertheless,  I  repeat,  whether 
for  her  or  for  ourselves,  is  in  the  candid 
study  of  beginnings ;  and  I  do  not  see,  in 
this  connection,  how  any  student  of  history 


THE   CHICAGO-LAMBETH  ARTICLES     179 

can  bo  long  in  doubt  as  to  what  its  lesson 
is  concerning  that  which  has  been  the  great 

source  of  all  our  differences,  the  com- 
munion of  the  Roman  Obedience.  "That 
body  is  indeed  to  many,  many  minds,"  as 
Dr.  Edward  Washburn  has  impressively 
phrased  it  "a  source  of  vague  terror,  to 
many  others  a  miracle  of  power  which 
compels  a  reluctant  admiration.  It  seems 
to  stand,  after  all  the  battle  of  these  cen- 
turies, as  impregnable  as  ever;  it  covers 
this  new  world  with  churches;  it  plots 
new  leagues  in  Europe ;  and  while  it  has 
lost  Italy,  and  its  power  is  crippled  in 
Austria,  Spain,  and  France,  it  challenges 
the  strength  of  Germany.  It  could  compel 
obedience  even  in  the  face  of  an  old 
Catholic  secession;  it  draws  its  converts 
from  Protestant  England,  and  dreams  of 
the  triumph,  there  as  everywhere,  of 
Ultramontanism.  But  surely  if  we  soberly 
read  history  we  need  not  be  disturbed  by 
such  facts.  It  is  not  strange  that  such  a 
power  survives.  It  lives  first  of  all  by  its 
traditional  hold  on  the  religious  faith 
and  habit  of  a  large  part  of  Christendom. 
We  are  never  to  forget  that  the  Protestant 
Reformation  was  confined  almost  whollv 


180  CIIURCII   UNITY 

to  those  German  or  Saxon  lands  where 
there  had  been  a  freer  revival  of  science 
and  letters  and  a  national  life  never  so 
fettered  by  papal  despotism.  Nor  is  it 
strange  that  the  old  attachment  to  the 
Church  of  the  past,  the  memories  of 
the  noblest  age  of  scholars  and  saints,  the 
Church  entwined  with  all  the  faith  and 
habit  of  the  people,  should  remain.  The 
Old  Catholic  movement  is  the  best  com- 
mentary on  this  fact.  We  cannot  look 
save  with  love  and  reverence  on  men  like 
Dollinger  and  Hyacinthe  who  could  not, 
till  the  last,  give  up  their  ancient  religion, 
but  dreamed  of  a  reformed  papacy;  and 
we  must  be  content  that  such  move- 
ments shall  work  themselves  out  in  such 
sober  ways  as  may  bring  reform  without 
destruction.  It  may  be  long  before  Rome 
shall  lose  this  power  which  it  has  by  its 
antiquity,  and  its  seeming  unity.  It  lives 
as  the  mistletoe,  which  keeps  its  own  green 
bloom  by  the  sap  it  draws  from  the  trunk, 
but  strangles  the  gigantic  oak  at  last.  But 
aofain  it  has  its  life  from  the  influence  it 
exerts  beyond  its  own  communion  over  the 
minds  of  many  in  a  time  of  religious  quarrel 
and  unbelief.     It  seems  to  rise  before  the 


THE   CIIICAGO-LAMBETII  ARTICLES     181 

eyea  of  doubting  men  as  the  only  repre- 
sentative of  the  unbroken  Church.     Every 

age  since  the  Reformation  has  seen  the 
examples  of  conversion  from  Protestant 
ranks.  We  have  seen  it  in  our  own  day, 
in  noble  minds  like  Newman,  seduced  by 
the  dream  of  Catholicity,  and  dismayed  by 
the  growth  of  religious  freedom.  It  can 
blind  the  scholar  by  its  pretended  historic 
claims  and  dazzle  the  imaginative  by  the 
charm  of  its  ritual.  There  is  a  compact 
strength  in  its  organization  which  makes 
it  far  more  effective  than  our  free  Protes- 
tantism. It  has  the  drill  of  an  ecclesiastical 
army.  It  has  the  might  of  an  unscrupulous 
logic.  ...  It  proclaims  the  infallibility 
of  one  head ;  it  allows  no  freedom  of 
opinion;  it  utters  its  historic  falsehoods 
with  the  voice  of  the  Ecumenical  Council; 
it  knows  no  code  of  faith  or  morals  save 
implicit  obedience.  There  is  in  all  tins 
a  power  which  overawes  the  world.  New- 
man tells  us  in  his  Apologia,  that,  even  in 
Ins  unenlightened,  evangelical  youth,  he 
fell  into  the  habit,  he  knew  not  how,  when 
he  went  into  the  dark  of  making  the  sign 
of  the  Cross.  It  was  a  pre-Roman  instinct. 
And  his  passage  into  the  Roman  commu- 


182  CHURCH   UNITY 

nion  was  just  this.  It  was  his  magic  charm 
in  his  intellectual  dark,  and  it  is  the 
Apologia  of  almost  all  who  have  followed 
him.  The  Roman  obedience  was  not  a 
faith,  but  an  escape  from  thought.  And 
we  need  not  therefore  imagine  that  it  is 
very  soon  to  be  extinguished.  It  may  be 
long  before  it  loses  its  hold  upon  the  half 
instructed  intelligence,  the  imaginative 
and  the  credulous  worship  of  the  world." 

But  we  turn  back  from  this  essentially 
modern  or  mediaeval  conglomerate  of 
audacity  and  superstition,  and  sectarian 
intolerance,  to  that  clear  and  simple 
portraiture  of  the  Catholic  Church  which 
is  given  to  us  in  apostolic  history,  and 
we  feel  instinctively  that,  sooner  or  later, 
that  simpler  and  nobler  ideal  is  to  be 
redeemed  out  of  the  rubbish  and  error  of 
the  past  and  to  be  the  ruling  force  in 
that  which  shall  be  the  Church  of  a  gloiious 
future  !  Least  of  all  need  we  fear  for  the 
essential  unity  of  the  Church  of  God. 
"  We  must  resist,"  as  that  brilliant  essay 
upon  the  Latin  age  from  which  I  have  just 
quoted  reminds  us,1  "  the  discords  and  the 
loose    unbelief     which     now     as     always 

1  Washburn,  Epochs  in  Church  History,  p.  74. 


THE  CIIICAGO-LAMBETII  ARTICLES    183 

threaten  us.  We  must  maintain  the  sym- 
bols of  our  faith  and  the  historic  order  of 
the  Church.  But  we  are  never  to  forget 
that  the  unity  which  was  destroyed  in  that 
Latin  Church  was  one  that  cannot  return. 
...  I  know  no  stranger  book  than  the 
Irenicon  of  Dr.  Pusey,  in  which,  after 
proving  with  the  wealth  of  learning  that 
modern  Rome  has  substituted  Mariolatry 
for  Christian  worship,  he  proposes  an  alli- 
ance with  it  on  the  basis  of  Trent,  as  if 
the  Mariolatry  he  exposes  were  not  the 
very  development  of  Trent."  Rather  than 
this  "  we  want  the  unity  that  consists  in 
an  open  Bible,  a  sound  intelligence,  a  better 
learning,  a  reasonable  faith.  Our  fathers 
bought  it  in  the  fires  of  Smithfield  and 
baptized  it  in  the  baptism  of  their  blood, 
and  we  will  keep  it  forever.  The  strength 
of  the  Church  lies  in  this,  that  it  works 
with  the  forces  of  a  Christian  civilization." 
And  the  whole  tendency  of  those  forces 
is  in  the  direction  of  the  closer  alliance  of 
all  Christian  people,  the  steady  elimination 
of  the  sources  of  mutual  misapprehension, 
the  frank  recognition  of  excellencies  in 
those  from  whom  we  are  separated,  and  the 
economy  of  wasted  forces,  upon  the  basis 


184  CHURCH  UNITY 

of  a  mutual  co-operation,  which  is  mutually 
trustful,  mutually  respectful,  and  most  of 
all  mutually  loving. 

It  is  because  the  earliest  days  of  Chris- 
tian history  are  the  days  which  teach  us 
this  lesson  most  clearly  that,  more  and 
more,  the  better  sentiment  of  our  genera- 
tion is  turning  back  to  study  their  story 
and  to  seek  to  recover  their  spirit. 

V.  Finally,  I  look  with  hopefulness  to 
the  coming  of  a  day  which  shall  bring 
with  it  a  recovery  of  primitive  unity  and 
the  building  of  a  Christian  fellowship  at 
once  Scriptural  and  comprehensive,  upon 
some  such  basis  as  the  Chicago-Lambeth 
Declaration,  because  of  my  profound  faith 
in  the  mission  to  the  whole  world  of  a 
Christianity  which  is  not  Greek  or  Ro- 
man, Oriental  or  Italian,  but  Anglo-Saxon. 
I  can  readily  anticipate  at  this  point  how 
some  one  may  say,  "  But  is  not  such  an 
expectation  an  illustration  of  precisely  the 
blunder  upon  which  you  have  just  been  so 
freely  commentating?  You  have  told  us 
that  one  reason  why  we  may  not  look  for 
the  reunion  of  Christendom  along  the  line 
of  the  Roman  Obedience  is  because  it  stands 
for  a  type   of  Christianity  which   is  not 


THE  CHICAGO-LAMBETH  ARTICLES     185 

Catholic  but  local,  and  what  you  have 
not  told  us  church  history  has  abundantly 
shown ;  viz.,  that  the  earliest  divisions  of 
Christendom  came  to  pass  not  alone  be- 
cause of  the  strife  of  this  or  that  branch 
of  the  Church  of  Christ  for  supremacy, 
but  also  because  of  that  centrifugal  force 
in  all  national  churches  which  tended  to 
drive  them  apart  into  merely  national 
camps."  Of  this  tendency  it  must  be 
owned  that  the  history  of  the  Eastern 
Church  is  an  impressive  illustration.  Its 
dominant  type  to-day  is  not  Greek  but 
Russian.  Apart  from  the  Russo-Greek 
Church  the  churches  of  the  East  have 
little  life,  little  learning,  little  aggressive 
power.  And  no  one  who  knows  the  East, 
and  Russia  also,  can  be  insensible  to  the 
fact  that  in  that  mighty  empire  the  fea- 
tures of  a  narrow  and  intolerant  national- 
ism have  overlaid  those  others  which  in 
the  earlier  history  of  the  Eastern  Church 
made  it  the  witness  of  a  primitive  faith 
and  of  the  apostolic  temper.  Yet  these 
are  the  two  great  types  of  national  Chris- 
tianity to-day :  the  Latin,  arrogant,  intol- 
erant, unscholarly;  the  Greek,  narrow, 
slumbrous,   and  unaspiring.     "  Surely,1'  it 


186  CHURCU   UNITY 

may  be  said,  "the  Church  of  the  future, 
whatever  may  be  its  domiuant  character- 
istics, will  be  free  from  the  tint  and  taint 
of  any  merely  national  characteristics." 

But  at  this  point  there  salute  us  certain 
significant  facts  which  we  cannot  wholly 
ignore.  One  of  them  relates  to  what  Dr. 
Bushnell  called  the  out-populating  power 
of  Anglo-Saxon  Christendom,  especially 
since  the  days  of  the  Reformation.  The 
other  day,  in  London,  a  civic  corporation 
gave  a  dinner  to  the  governor  of  the  British 
Colony  of  Queensland.  The  banquet  was 
co-inciclent  with  that  explosion  of  Ameri- 
can hostility  to  Great  Britain  to  which  I 
may  not  more  particularly  allude  ;  and  one 
of  its  most  conspicuous  guests  was  the  Colo- 
nial Secretary  of  the  English  Government. 
In  a  speech  made  on  that  occasion  Mr. 
Chamberlain  alluded  to  the  stress  which 
had  been  laid  in  public  criticisms  of  Eng- 
land's foreign  policy  upon  what  had  been 
called  the  "isolation  of  England,"  and 
remarked,  not,  I  apprehend,  without  a 
somewhat  pardonable  complacency  :  "  The 
statement  of  our  adversaries  is  quite  true. 
England  is  an  isolated  power  ;  but  she  has 
always  thriven  upon  her  isolation.     She  is 


THE   CIIICAGO-LAMBETII  ARTICLES    187 

without  foreign  alliances,  but  she  has  the 

devotion  of  all  her  children ;  and  it  may 
interest  her  friends  in  Germany  [one  can 
imagine  the  savage  resentment  with  which 
the  foolish  young  Emperor  of  Germany 
must  have  read  the  words],  to  know  that 
the  territory  of  the  single  British  colony 
whose  governor  we  are  honoring  to-night 
is  tlnee  times  as  large  as  the  whole  Ger- 
man Empire  ;  and  that  of  such  colonies 
Great  Britain  has  to-night  no  less  than 
seven,"  —  in  other  words,  that  the  Colonial 
Dominion,  alone,  of  Great  Britain  is  no 
less  than  twenty-one  times  as  large  as  the 
whole  Empire  of  Germany. 

Now,  then,  have  you  ever  stopped  to 
consider  what  such  a  statement  as  that, 
made  by  a  government  official,  scrupu- 
lously careful  as  to  his  facts,  really  means? 
Have  we  ever  stopped  to  consider  the 
larger  question,  —  what  that  is  which  this 
amazing  reproduction  upon  all  sorts  of 
foreign  soils  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  really 
stands  for?  There  is  no  fact,  so  far  as 
my  observation  goes,  so  significant  and 
yet  so  little  appreciated  in  all  our  modern 
history  as  this.  Think  how  much  older 
the   civilizations   of    the  Latin   races   are 


188  CHURCH   UNITY 

than  that  of  this  complex  type  which  for 
want  of  a  better  name  we  call  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race.     Think  of  the  history  of  the 
progress  of  Christian  civilization,  as  com- 
pared with  that  which  the  English  people 
have    achieved.       They    were    Spaniards 
who  first  came   here,   we    say,    and   gave 
Christianity  to  the  Western  Hemisphere. 
What  has   become  of    Spanish  Christian- 
ity in  this  northern  continent,  and  what, 
as  a  moral,  intellectual,  or  spiritual  force, 
is  it  worth  to-day  in  the  southern  ?    What 
impression  has  French   civilization   made 
upon   Algeria,   or   Russian  upon  Turkey, 
or  German   or    Italian    upon  Asia  Minor 
or    Africa?     The    donkey-boy  who   runs 
at   your   stirrup   in   the    streets   of  Cairo 
speaks,    next   to    Arabic,    the    tongue   of 
the    Greek   or   the  Tuscan;    but  English 
ideas,  aspirations,  fashions,  traditions,  are 
those  of  which  he  knows  the  most.     When 
the  Queen  of  England  walks  abroad  she 
leans,   not  upon   one   of  her   owTn  sturdy 
Islanders,  but  upon  the  arm  of  an  Indian 
servant  from  Bombay.     Go  to  the  country 
from  which  her  favorite  servant  and  sub- 
ject  comes.     The   old  traditions,   the  old 
religions,  the  old  prejudices  and  animosi- 


THE   CHICAGO-LAMBETH  ARTICLES      L89 

ties  are  still  there.    But,  penetrating  them 

all  in  a  silent  and  most  singular  way,  arc 
those  other  ideas  and  traditions  which  are 
transforming  her  courts  of  justice,  which 
are  recreating  her  social  order,  which,  in 
one  word,  arc  making  of  the  modern  Anglo- 
Indian  one  of  the  most  interesting  and 
promising  studies  in  the  whole  racial  prob- 
lem of  the  future.  It  is  the  same  thing 
that  we  find  in  Africa,  in  Kamchatka, 
and  in  Japan.  In  this  last  nation  the 
remarkable  transformations  which  have 
come  to  pass  have  been  the  effects  of  a 
longing  not  for  an  English  but  for  an 
American  type  of  civilization,  we  are  told. 
Yes,  but  what  is  the  American  type  of 
civilization,  after  all,  but  the  Anglo-Saxon 
type  ?  We  may  change  the  scene,  but  the 
language,  the  laws,  the  literature,  the  tra- 
ditions are  substantially  the  same.  And 
these  illustrate,  whether  in  the  old  world 
or  the  new,  a  remarkable  quality  of  adap- 
tation like  which  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
there  is  nothing  else  in  all  the  earth.  It 
is  a  quality  which  will  not  be  confined  or 
shut  in,  and  which  has  made  the  whole 
round  world  somehow  conscious  of  the 
existence   and   sensitive   to   the   touch   of 


190  CHURCH  UNITY 

Western  civilization,  as  to  none  other  that 
can  be  named. 

Now,  then,  have  you  ever  stopped  to 
consider  of  what  this  is  the  prophecy  in 
the  religions  history  of  the  world?  The 
basis  of  character  in  a  nation  is  to  be 
found  in  its  moral  ideas.  The  basis  of 
moral  ideas  is  to  be  found  in  a  people's 
faith.  It  is  true  that  in  the  great  essen- 
tials of  faith  the  nations  of  Christendom 
are  one.  But  the  grasp  with  which  those 
same  essentials  are  held,  the  hold  which 
they  have  upon  the  common  life  of  the 
people,  the  effects  which  they  produce  in 
conduct  and  character,  are  quite  another 
matter.  We  have  seen  in  other  races  and 
people  than  our  own,  however  we  may 
honor  their  fidelity  to  doctrinal  form  alas, 
a  strange  alienation  of  the  popular  life 
from  the  spell  of  their  inner  meaning. 
We  have  seen  a  divorce  between  precept 
and  conduct  so  radical  and  so  habitual  as 
gave  us  a  new  sense  of  those  tremendous 
words,  "  The  letter  killeth ;  it  is  the  spirit 
that  giveth  life."  We  have  seen  the 
Word  of  God,  as  you  may  see  it  in  the 
Coptic  Church  to-day,  sealed  up  in  a  mas- 
sive and  richly  decorated  casket,  but  never 


THE  CUICAGO-LAMBETII  ARTICLES     191 

by  any  chance  opened  and  read  for  the 
teaching  and  guidance  of  the  people.  We 
have  seen  a  system  of  morals  such  as  that 
of  Alfonso  da  Liguori  accepted  as  the  in- 
terpreter of  duty  for  whole  races  of  men. 
And  all  the  while,  too,  we  have  seen  the 
growing  arrogance  of  a  priesthood  and 
the  growing  insensibility  of  the  people. 
Do  I  need  to  set  over  against  such  a  situa- 
tion the  story  of  Anglo-Saxon  Christian- 
ity during  the  last  three  centuries  ?  Not 
extravagantly  did  that  gifted  voice  from 
which  I  have  already  quoted  not  long  ago 
declare,  "  If  we  turn  from  the  discords 
on  the  surface  and  ask  what  after  all  has 
been  the  fruit  of  this  (later)  Christianity 
on  the  real  civilization  of  these  ages,  what 
for  education,  for  a  nobler  philanthropy, 
for  the  social  issues  of  a  time  that  cares 
less  for  church  politics  than  for  the  king- 
dom of  Christ,  —  then  I  say,  in  spite  of 
its  rival  sects,  it  is  here  that  I  recognize 
its  meaning.  ...  I  look  on  the  Church  as 
a  divine  fabric,  but  its  purpose  is  to  edu- 
cate the  heart  and  life  of  mankind.  If  I 
go  to  those  lands  where  the  Reformation 
has  soAvn  its  seed,  if  I  compare  with  the 
intelligence,     the    private    morality,     the 


192  CHURCH   UNITY 

social  virtue  of  these  the  conditions  of 
the  olden  time,  I  need  no  better  witness. 
Here,  amidst  all  the  strifes  of  doctrine  or 
the  divisions  of  sect,  I  know  the  real 
power  of  a  religion  which  has  renewed 
the  conscience.  I  know  that  I  shall  be 
told  of  the  loose  growth  of  unbelief.  But 
I  cannot  on  this  account  blind  my  eyes  to 
the  reality.  It  was  the  worst  feature  of 
the  so-called  ages  of  faith  that  they  ob- 
scured the  moral  sense  of  the  world ;  there 
could  be  no  awakening  of  the  intelligent 
belief,  of  the  self-governed  will.  It  is  so 
to-day,  and  it  is  the  noblest  gift  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  Christianity  to  mankind  that  it  has 
planted  religion  in  the  conscience,  and 
that  out  of  it  has  grown  the  harvest  of 
its  civilization."  l 

I  know  it  will  be  said  that  all  this  may 
be  true,  but  that  it  has  very  little  to  do 
with  the  power  of  such  a  Christianity  to 
touch  and  transform  the  faith  and  life  of 
other  races  than  its  own.  But  what  is 
the  larger  significance  of  what  is  happen- 
ing among  peoples  and  faiths  which, 
though  Christian,  have  seemed  most  alien 

1  Dr.  Ed.   Washburn,    Epochs  iu    Church   History, 
p.  100. 


THE  CHICAGO-LAMBETH  ARTICLES    193 

from  our  own?  At  Constantinople  there 
is  a  college  of  the  faith  and  order  —  so 
far  as  it  is  committed  to  any  particular 
ecclesiastical  order  —  which,  unless  I  am 
mistaken,  is  that  for  which  this  seminary 
stands.  It  was  my  great  privilege  to 
visit  it,  not  long  ago,  and  to  spend  an 
evening  under  the  roof  of  the  rare  man 
who  is  at  the  head  of  it.  "We  are  not 
seeking,"  said  Dr.  Washburn,  "to  wTin 
these  Roumanians,  Armenians,  Bulgarians 
and  the  rest,  to  abandon  their  own  Chris- 
tian fellowslrips.  We  are  seeking  to  send 
them  back,  as  graduates  of  this  college, 
filled  with  a  new  spirit,  to  put  fresh  life 
into  their  old  forms."  And  what  have 
been  the  results  of  that  noble  and  remark- 
able work?  Some  of  them  can  best  be 
appreciated  when  I  say  that  to-day  in 
Constantinople  some  five  pulpits,  if  my 
recollection  serves  me,  are  filled  with  men 
who  are  graduates  of  Robert  College,  and 
who  are  in  the  orders  of  the  Greek 
Church,  —  pulpits  which  for  a  generation 
or  more  previously  had  been  wholly  silent. 
When  I  add  further  that  at  the  time  these 
facts  were  communicated  to  me,  nearly  if 
not  quite  every  member  of  the  Cabinet  of 
13 


194  CHURCH   UNITY 

Bulgaria  was  an  alumnus  of  the  same 
college,  you  will  recognize,  I  think,  not 
alone  what  a  remarkable  door  has  been 
opened  to  some  of  the  best  influences  of 
Anglo-Saxon  Christianity,  but  how  re- 
markable would  seem  to  be  the  adaptation 
of  its  whole  temper  and  spirit  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  awakening  and  unification  of 
Eastern  Christendom. 

I  can  well  understand  how  remote  and 
visionary  much  of  this  will  sound  to  one 
whose  conception  of  Christian  unity  is 
that  of  a  compact  and  symmetrical  organi- 
zation in  which  all  local  and  national 
types  shall  somehow  disappear  under  the 
super-imposition  of  hard  and  fast  formulas 
of  dogma  and  usage.  But  of  the  two 
dreams  I  do  not  believe  any  thoughtful 
man  can  be  in  much  doubt  as  to  which 
is  the  more  likely  of  fulfilment.  The 
Chicago-Lambeth  Articles  are  destined, 
I  am  confident,  to  survive  the  acrid  criti- 
cism which  is  incapable  of  rising  to  an 
intelligent  appreciation,  whether  of  their 
letter  or  their  spirit.  More  and  more  will 
it  come  to  be  recognized  that  they  pre- 
sent not  only  a  sentimental  but  an  organic 
basis  of   union.     More   and  more  will   it 


TUB  CIIWAGO-LAMBETII  ARTICLES    105 

come  to  be  recognized  that  what  have 
been  most  freely  faulted  as  their  elements 
of  weakness  are  really  their  elements  of 
strength.  They  are  the  product  of  a  race 
which,  arrogant  as  it  may  sound  to  say  so, 
has  revealed  itself  to  many  men  in  many 
lands  as  having  more  than  any  other  the 
future  of  Christendom  in  its  hands.  They 
may  not  bring  about  the  result  for  which 
we  all  long,  and  to  which,  let  me  add, 
this  honored  institution  and  the  men  who 
are  its  strength  and  ornament  have  so 
nobly  contributed,  —  to-day  or  to-morrow. 
But  what  of  that  ?  You  and  I,  my  broth- 
ers, can  trust  Him  to  whom,  in  the  words 
of  Bossuet,  "  the  ages  of  men  are  moments 
of  the  disc  of  his  eternity."  And,  mean- 
time, the  signs  of  His  working  are  not 
wanting.  "  God  is  showing  us  as  never 
before  that  the  Church  of  his  appoint- 
ment, the  Christian  brotherhood  of  man, 
is  needed  in  its  fullest  strength  to  meet 
the  demands  of  a  vast  and  confused  civili- 
zation. The  day  is  past  when  men  of 
earnest  thought  are  busied  only  or  chiefly 
with  the  questions  of  church  polity.  It 
is  what  the  gospel  and  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  can  do  for  the  solution  of  the  growing 


196  CHURCH  UNITY 

riddles  of  society,  the  inequality  of  caste, 
the  purifying  of  the  deep  corruptions 
of  our  time,  the  overgrown  luxury,  the 
intricate  diseases,  physical  and  moral,  the 
curse  of  serfdom,  and  (let  me  not  be  afraid 
to  say  it  here ! )  the  curse  of  war,  the 
promotion  of  peace  and  of  international 
union."  Are  we  to  solve  these  problems 
by  sneering  and  railing  at  one  another? 
The  whole  heart  of  Christendom  cries  out, 
in  its  better  moments,  against  such  a 
monstrous  anomaly.  May  God  hasten  the 
day  when,  through  your  prayers  and 
labors  and  sacrifices,  and  mine,  it  shall 
cease  to  be ! 


THE   UNITY   OF    THE    SPIRIT  — A 
WORLD-WIDE   NECESSITY 

By  the   Rev.  AMORY  H.  BRADFORD,  D.D. 

Pastor  of  the  First  Congregational  Church,  Montclair,  N.J. 


THE   UNITY   OF   THE   SPIRIT  —  A 
WORLD-WIDE  NECESSITY. 


A  NGLICANS,  Episcopalians,  Roman 
Catholics,  and  all  branches  of  the 
Christian  Church  which  put  emphasis 
upon  the  episcopate,  begin  arguments  in 
favor  of  unity  by  emphasis  upon  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Church;  while  descendants 
of  the  Puritans  emphasize  the  doctrine  of 
the  Spirit.  Consequently  the  former  favor 
Church  unity,  while  the  latter  plead  for 
Christian  unity.  A  few  Episcopalians 
teach  that  Christian  unity  must  precede 
Church  unity;  while  some  descendants 
of  the  Puritans  grant  that  Church  unity 
must  precede  Christian  unity.  Into  this 
discussion  we  are  not  led  by  our  subject. 
I  pause  only  to  observe  that,  in  the  sense 
in  which  Paul  used  it,  the  saying  "  first 
that  which  is  natural,  and  afterward  that 
which   is   spiritual"  contains   a   profound 


200  CHURCH    UNITY 

truth,  and  yet  there  is  another  truth  still 
more  profound.  The  basis  of  the  natural  is 
the  spiritual.  A  more  exact  statement  of 
what  Paul  meant  would  be,  first,  the  spirit- 
ual ;  then  the  spiritual  in  its  manifestation 
through  the  natural ;  then  the  spiritual 
freed  from  the  limitation  of  the  natural. 
Behind  all  development  is  a  spiritual  force. 
The  ideal  of  the  Church  will  not  be  real- 
ized by  its  being  united  in  one  body,  obe- 
dient to  one  human  will,  and  moving  as 
one  mass  :  the  ideal  of  the  Church  will  be 
realized  when  its  members  are  harmonious, 
not  because  in  one  organization,  but  be- 
cause filled  with  one  spirit.  The  only 
power  which  really  can  unify  is  spirit. 
Unity  which  is  not  first  spiritual  is  only 
formal,  has  no  vitality,  and  cannot  endure. 
It  is  our  duty  to  pray  and  work  not  only 
for  Christian  unity,  but  also  for  the  unity 
of  the  Church  of  Christ ;  but  in  my  opinion 
that  object  will  not  result  from  Lambeth 
"  Quadrilaterals,"  National  Council  Arti- 
cles, or  any  other  purely  mechanical  devices. 
Such  declarations  may  help  the  cause  by 
stimulating  discussion,  and  they  may  hin- 
der it  by  obscuring  the  real  question  at 
issue.      Something  vital  and  vitalizing  is\ 


THE   UNITY  OF  THE  SPIRIT  201 

f    required.     The  one  Church  will  be  an  or- 
Aganism,  intensely  alive,  and  an  organism 
/  is  never  made;  it  always  grows.     In  this 
^-ease  the  order  must  be,  first  the  spiritual, 
and  afterward  the  natural  or  visible.    This 
large  and  complex  problem  has  many  fac- 
tors, only  a  few  of  which  we  can  hope  even 
to  mention. 

I.  The  student  of  current  events  cannot 
fail  to  have  been  impressed  by  the  move- 
ment toward  unity  evident  in  all  the 
world.  For  -centuries  the  trend  of  things 
I  was  toward  individualism.  That  has  not 
lost  momentum,  but  it  is  now  met  by  a  co- 
ordinate movement  toward  unity.  The 
desire  for  a  united  Church  is  one  manifes- 
tation of  a  growing  longing  for  a  united 
world,  and  that  united  world  is  beginning 
to  take  shape  in  our  time.  The  most  re- 
markable fact  in  contemporary  history  is 
the  progress  which  the  nations  have  al- 
ready made  toward  what  we  might  call  a 
/"United  States  of  the  World"  if  it  had 
i  not  already  been  named  "  the  Kingdom  of 
God."  The  idea  of  the  unity  of  all 
nations  is  no  idle  dream. 

There  is  a  movement  among  groups  of 
nations    toward    a    limited    unity.      The 


202  CIIURCH  UNITY 

many  German  kingdoms  have  been  merged 
in  one  German  Empire ;  the  petty  Italian 
states,  ruled  by  miniature  sovereigns,  have 
given  place  to  "  United  Italy ; "  the  pro- 
phetic statesmen  of  Great  Britain  antici- 
pate imperial  federation  which  may  bind 
the  British  Islands,  Canada,  British  Co- 
lumbia, Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  South 
Africa  in  a  closely  articulated  empire, 
with  common  language,  history,  religion, 
which  will  move  together  in  all  imperial 
projects.  Russia  is  slowly  but  surely  reach- 
ing her  arms  around  nearly  the  whole  of 
Asia,  and  when  the  Siberian  railway  is  com- 
pleted, Persia,  and  possibly  even  China, 
will  be  subject  to  the  Northern  autocrat. 
Among  nations  the  word  of  the  hour  is 
unity. 

This  movement  is  more  impressive  when 
it  is  studied  somewhat  in  detail.  Armies 
and  navies  are  glaring  at  each  other  as  if 
eager  to  fight,  but  no  one  dares  to  begin. 
In  the  meantime  railways  are  shortened; 
trains  fly  faster ;  steamers  increase  in  speed ; 
the  attractions  of  travel  are  multiplying; 
trips  around  the  globe  are  being  exploited, 
and  more  people  know  the  world  well  than 
formerly  had  a  smattering  of  information 


THE    UNITY   OF   THE  SPIRIT  203 

about  one  land.  The  first  Atlantic  cable 
was  laid  easily  within  my  memory;  now 
there  are  many  on  that  ocean,  and  many 
projected  for  the  Pacific.  All  lands  are 
open  to  travel  and  business. 

But  the  movement  of  travel  and  com- 
merce is  less  significant  than  that  of 
thought.  The  same  books  are  read  in  all 
lands.  A  Japanese  who  has  never  been 
abroad  will  talk  to  you  of  Hegel  and 
Matthew  Arnold,  of  Tennyson  and  Her- 
bert Spencer,  of  Beecher  and  Brooks,  as 
if  all  were  natives  of  Japan.  Morning 
papers  in  Tokyo  and  Shanghai  have  much 
the  same  contents  as  those  of  London  and 
New  York  ;  while  great  European  and 
American  dailies  have  correspondents  in 
the  East.  Occidental  scholars  are  study- 
ing the  religions  and  literature  of  the 
Orient,  as  scholars  in  the  East  the  religion 
and  literature  of  the  Occident. 

These  facts  show  that  in  spite  of  selfish 
statesmanship  the  interests  of  one  nation 
/are  the  interests  of  all.  We  are  in  the 
midst  of  what  may  be  termed  a  world- 
wide movement.     The  Church  is  affected 

.    T>ylTIeTTeit^geist  —  which  in  this  instance 

\  is  the  Holy  Spirit. 


201  ciiuncn  UNITY 

II.  Our  second  proposition  has  the  force 
of  an  axiom:  a  united  world  cannot  be 
conquered  by  a  divided  Church.  The 
world  is  becoming  one,  and  the  Church 
must  therefore  close  its  ranks.  It  will  be 
well  here  to  observe  some  things  not  in- 
cluded in  this  idea  of  a  united  world. 
A  common  language  may  not  immediately 
result,  but  it  is  evident  that  as  travel 
increases  and  the  volume  of  business  ex- 
pands, there  must  be  a  popular  medium 
for  international  intercourse. 

History  and  traditions  cannot  be  changed, 
and  they  make  the  obliteration  of  individu- 
alities impossible.  Unity  does  not  neces- 
sitate sameness,  but  rather  the  blending  of 
things  that  differ.  The  path  by  which 
various  peoples  have  advanced  is  dear  to 
them;  they  cherish  the  memories  of  the 
great  souls  who  have  led  them  to  victory, 
and  do  not  forget  that  they  have  risen  on 
the  sufferings  of  heroes  long  dead.  To 
take  reverence  for  ancestry  from  the 
Japanese  or  Chinese  would  be  more  diffi- 
cult than  to  make  the  leopard  change  his 
spots.  Without  looking  for  impossibili- 
ties, I  affirm  that  the  nations  are  actually, 
though  not  always  consciously,  beginning 


THE    UNITY  OF    THE  SPIRIT  205 

to  anticipate  a  common  future.  They  are 
like  streams  which  have  risen  in  many 
countries  gradually  nearing  one  another; 
by  and  by  they  will  meet  and  swell  a 
mighty  river ;  the  river  will  be  one,  and 
yet  from  it  will  run  silver  lines  to  many 
and  far  distant  mountain  springs. 

Again,  there  is  no  likelihood  of  radical 
changes  in  what  may  be  called  racial 
nature.  Men  will  get  together,  but  those 
subtile  differences  of  temperament  and 
character  which,  in  large  measure,  are  the 
results  of  physical  environment  will  re- 
main. The  unity  of  the  world  will  affect 
neither  the  climate  nor  the  configuration 
of  various  lands  :  consequently  while 
widely  separated  nations  may  come  to- 
gether, it  will  not  be  into  uniformity  and 
monotony,  but  into  the  use  of  what  be- 
longs to  the  individual  nation  for  the 
common  good.  The  highlands  will  still 
breed  heroes,  while  the  lowlands  will  raise 
agricultural  and  commercial  peoples;  but 
railways  and  telegraphs  will  bring  high- 
lands and  lowlands  so  near  to  one  another 
that  their  interests  will  be  the  same,  and. 
each  be  seen  to  be  necessary  to  the  other. 

Since   individualities   will   not  be   des- 


206  cnuRcn  unity 

troyed  by  this  unity,  it  follows,  of  course, 
that  intellectual  processes  will  not  be 
materially  altered.  In  the  same  land  now 
one  is  a  poet  and  another  a  philosopher, 
and  in  the  drawing  together  of  the  races 
men  will  differ  intellectually  as  in  the 
past.  The  German  and  the  Chinaman  will 
be  slow  and  steady;  the  Frenchman  and 
the  Japanese  quick  and  mercurial.  The 
difference  between  the  mental  and  moral 
characteristics  of  nations  is  as  great  as  ■ 
that  between  their  physical  characteristics. 
Steamers  and  telegraphs  will  affect  a  man's 
intellectual  faculties  no  more  than  the 
color  of  his  face  or  the  texture  of  his  hair. 
Each  nation  will  modify  every  other,  and 
the  common  thought  will  be  different  from 
what  it  is  now  precisely  because  what  one 
people  think  all  people  will  think ;  but 
the  intellectual  faculty,  which  is  largely 
the  product  of  ancestry  and  environment, 
will  remain  practically  as  at  present.  If 
the  faculty  is  not  changed,  the  processes, 
which  are  the  paths  along  which  the  fac- 
ulty moves,  will  not  be  greatly  changed. 

While  slowly  but  surely  the  people  of 
the  world  are  being  united;  while  the 
movement  must  be  accelerated,  it  is  not 


THE   UNITY  OF  THE  SriRIT  207 

toward  dead  and  barren  uniformity,  but 
toward  such  a  union  as  will  allow  full 
play  to  individuality  and  yet  blend  all 
in  one  great  harmony.  In  other  words, 
among  nations  there  is  a  growing  spiritual 
unity.  If  the  Church  would  reach  all 
classes,  and  breathe  into  them  divine  in- 
spiration, it  must  be  a  united  Church. 
While  Providence  is  promoting  political 
unity,  making  men  see  eye  to  eye,  and 
desire  the  same  things,  it  is  folly  for  the 
Church  to  be  divided  into  warring  camps 
in  which  one  does  not  recognize  the  other, 
and  over  which  sometimes  are  raised 
hostile  flags.  A  united  world  calls  for  a 
united  Church,  a  Church  of  the  spirit,  in 
which  there  may  be  many  and  great  differ- 
ences, but  in  which  the  differences  will  all 
be  dominated  by  a  mighty  and  magnificent 
spiritual  energy. 

From  this  study  of  the  movement  of 
events  and  the  call  of  Providence  I  turn 
to  ask  how  far  this  superlative  idea  is  real- 
ized. I  must  grant  that  there  is  more  real 
unity  than  facts  at  first  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate, and  that  what  now  exists  is  sure  to 
grow  and  must  not  be  overlooked.  But  my 
object  is  not  to  speak  of  what  has  been 


208  CHURCH   UNITY 

achieved  so  much  as  to  place  in  clear  relief 
the  vast,  and  sometimes  discouraerincr,  task 

7  o      o7 

which  is  before  all  who  believe  in  the  king- 
dom of  God. 

1.  The  condition  of  that  part  of  the 
world  commonly  called  heathen.  Until 
one  has  travelled  extensively,  and  studied 
carefully  the  religious  condition  of  the  un- 
evangelized  nations,  he  has  a  faint  concep- 
tion of  the  smallness  of  the  beginnings  of 
Christianity,  and  no  idea  of  how  the  Chris- 
tian faith  sometimes  reacts  against  itself. 
This  is  seen  in  the  rivalry  to  which  it  stimu- 
lates the  non-Christian  religions.  Buddhism 
and  Mohamedanism  are  lethargic,  and  con- 
tent to  be  so,  until  inspired  to  activity  by 
the  presence  of  Christianity.  Then  they 
adopt  its  best  methods,  and  fight  it  with  its 
own  weapons.  From  being  mere  names 
they  become  aggressive  and  persistent  an- 
tagonists. It  seems  sometimes  as  if  Chris- 
tianity were  hardly  more  than  a  ripple  on 
an  infinite  ocean.  In  Japan  less  than  one- 
fourth  of  one  per  cent,  of  the  nearly 
42,000,000  of  people  are  even  nominally 
Christian.  In  China  the  proportion  is  not 
so  large.  In  the  Sandwich  Islands  the  na- 
tives, though  in  touch  with  the  Church  and 


THE    UNITY  OF   THE  SPIRIT  200 

its  influences,  seem  to  be  dying  out  or 
largely  returning  to  barbarism.  Of  the 
400,000,000  in  India  an  insignificant  pro- 
portion of  natives  acknowledge  the  sway 
of  the  Christ.  There  is  a  bright  side  in 
the  heroism  of  the  missionaries,  who  are 
persistent,  brave,  confident  of  victory ;  but 
the  cause  has  not  progressed  far  enough  to 
justify  the  slightest  division  among  the 
workers.  And  yet  in  every  non-Christian 
land  there  is  multiplicity  of  sects.  A 
Wesleyan  bishop  from  Canada  is  reported 
to  have  found  in  one  small  town  in  Japan 
four  different  branches  of  the  Methodist 
Church,  requiring  the  presence  at  stated  in- 
intervals  of  three  or  four  different  bishops 
from  America  and  Great  Britain.  The  report 
is  credible.  I  have  seen  in  one  place  after 
another  in  that  country  Presbyterians,  Bap- 
tists, Anglicans,  American  Episcopalians, 
Methodists  North  and  South,  Wesleyans 
from  Canada,  confusing  natives  by  different 
names,  insisting  on  insignificant  details  of 
their  own  organizations,  when  an  impres- 
sion had  hardly  been  made  on  surrounding 
heathenism.  What  do  Japanese  or  Chinese 
care  about  the  Historic  Episcopate  ?  What 
must  be  the  effect  on  a  converted  Buddhist 
14 


210  CHURCH  UNITY 

when  he  is  told  that,  because  he  has  not 
been  immersed,  he  must  not  partake  of  the 
Supper  of  the  Lord  with  a  saintly  heroine 
whose  name  is  known  from  one  end  of 
Japan  to  the  other  for  unparalleled  devotion 
in  the  hospitals,  and  who,  perhaps,  saved  his 
life  when  he  was  wounded  ?  Multiplicity 
of  Christian  sects  confuse  those  who  feel 
the  inadequacy  of  the  old  religions,  and 
who  have  dared  to  hope  that  our  Master 
might  be  indeed  the  Desire  of  all  Nations. 
In  the  face  of  a  united,  defiant,  and  often 
blatant  heathenism  we  present  a  divided 
camp.  If  it  be  said  that  there  are  sects 
among  the  ethnic  religions,  I  reply:  Yes, 
but  they  all  make  common  cause  against 
Christianity.  Cursory  travel  through  a 
country  might  not  show  this  fact,  but 
when  one  has  studied  the  life  of  the 
people  and  come  to  understand  its  inner 
forces,  he  finds  that  the  multitudes  are 
confused  and  confounded  because  Christ 
seems  to  be  divided. 

There  is  another  side  to  this  question. 
Those  who  stand  between  the  various  mis- 
sionary and  philantliropic  causes  pleading 
for  assistance  and  the  givers  in  the  churches 
must  ask  themselves  whether  this  tide  of 


THE    UNITY  OF  THE  SPIJiJT  211 

entreaty  will  ever  ebb.    T  confess  I  think  it 

is  time  that  this  subject  was  faced.  Is  not 
the  Christian  Church  being  constantly  and 
persistently  invaded  by  agents  in  the  inter- 
ests of  so-called  charities  to  the  peril  both  of 
the  Church  and  individual  souls  ?  The  plea 
for  humanity  was  never  more  urgent,  but  is 
there  not  baneful  and  wicked  extravagance 
in  the  way  benevolences  and  missions  are 
administered  ?  Have  we  a  right  to  go  to 
our  people  and  urge  sacrifice  in  giving  when 
those  sacrifices  are  not  in  behalf  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  but  that  senseless  and 
wicked  divisions  in  the  Church  may  be 
continued?  With  co-operation  the  mis- 
sionary service  of  the  world  might  be  ad- 
ministered by  a  much  smaller  number  of 
executive  officers  at  vastly  diminished  ex- 
pense. In  order  that  those  who  are  in  dark- 
ness may  be  told  of  Christ  every  Christian 
will  gladly  deny  himself ;  but  if  the  effort 
is  to  supplant  one  denomination  by  another 
we  may  well  inquire  if  extravagance  and 
injustice  have  not  already  been  carried  too 
far. 

These  facts,  then,  meet  us  as  we  study 
the  field  occupied  by  the  foreign  missionary 
societies:    the  work  is  altogether  out   of 


212  CHURCH  UNITY 

proportion  to  the  number  of  missionaries; 
and  there  is  poor  economy  in  the  use  of 
both  men  and  means.  Only  to  intrepid 
faith  is  there  hope  that  those  millions  will 
ever  be  greatly  affected  by  the  gospel.  It 
is  opposed  not  only  by  natural  wickedness, 
but  by  the  organized  aggressiveness  of 
older  faiths,  which  cannot  be  displaced  with- 
out a  determined  struggle.  Workers  in 
foreign  fields  are  opposed  by  corrupt  con- 
ditions which  have  behind  them  the  sanc- 
tion of  centuries;  philosophical  theories 
which  regard  the  faith  of  Christians  as 
absurd ;  governments  which  look  with  sus- 
picion upon  everything  which  teaches  men 
to  think.  The  contest  —  except  for  those 
who  have  faith  in  God  —  is  unequal  and 
hopeless.  Yet,  in  spite  of  obstacles,  young 
men  and  maidens,  with  courage  and  en- 
thusiasm, are  volunteering  for  forlorn  hopes 
in  numbers  greater  than  ever.  They  are 
taking  up  their  work,  and  dying  in  the 
service  as  if  victory  were  at  hand.  In  view 
of  these  facts,  is  it  not  time  for  the  ranks  to 
be  closed,  and  for  everything  which  prevents 
co-operation  to  be  swept  from  the  Church, 
no  matter  who  suffers  ? 

2.   When  we  turn  from  the  foreign  to 


THE   UNITY  OF  THE  BPIRIT  213 

the  home  field,  to  the  work  which  remains 
on  frontiers  and  in  great  cities,  we  iind  a 
problem  equally  complicated.  A  pastor 
who  had  spent  years  in  India  said  to  a 
friend  considering  a  call  to  London  : 
"  Come  to  London ;  it  is  the  greatest  mis- 
sionary field  in  the  world.  I  know,  for  I 
have  spent  years  on  mission  ground."  In 
many  localities  the  cities  are  relapsing  into 
barbarism.  Forces  are  working  toward 
heathenism  here  as  fast  as  in  Central 
Africa.  Selfishness  is  organized  and  bel- 
ligerent. It  opposes  the  Church  at  every 
step.  It  uses  consummate  ability  in  the 
degeneration  of  the  State,  in  the  exaltation 
of  unworthy  ideals  of  patriotism,  and  in 
its  appeals  to  passion  to  embroil  nations. 
Underneath  these  evils  are  others  more 
elusive  but  not  less  perilous.  The  multi- 
plication of  divorces  tells  a  sad  story.  The 
home  is  being  undermined.  The  young 
are  being  polluted  by  influences  alert  and 
obstinate  because  impelled  by  the  prospect 
of  financial  gain.  Opposed  to  those  agencies 
of  selfishness  are  spiritual  forces  working 
for  the  redemption  of  society;  but  closer 
study  shows  that  those  through  whom  the 
Spirit  must  act  are  not  organized,  often 


214  CHURCH  UNITY 

do  not  co-operate,  and  not  infrequently 
antagonize  one  another.  In  small  towns 
there  may  be  a  dozen  different  churches 
with  seldom  a  union  meeting,  where  a 
union  communion  service  is  impossible, 
and  where  there  is  not  the  slightest  con- 
sultation as  to  how  the  kingdom  of  God 
may  be  best  promoted.  This  is  no  exag- 
geration. When  were  the  representatives 
of  all  the  various  churches  in  New  York 
gathered  for  conference  concerning  the 
things  all  have  in  common?  I  venture 
to  say  that  never  in  its  history  was  such  a 
meeting  held.  Here  and  there  are  hints  of 
what  might  be.  The  "  East  Side  Workers  " 
is  a  suggestion  of  better  things.  But  were 
Protestants  and  Roman  Catholics,  Episco- 
palians and  Baptists,  Methodists  and  Pres- 
byterians, Unitarians  and  Universalists,  by 
their  leaders  ever  in  honest  conference 
where  differences  were  sunk  and  only 
this  question  at  the  front,  —  How  may 
those  who  bear  the  name  of  Christ  best 
do  the  work  of  Christ  in  this  great  city  ? 
But  you  ask,  "  How  could  those  who  differ 
widely  work  in  harmony  ? "  I  reply  by 
asking,  Are  there  no  common  foes  for  all 
to  fight?  Churches  are  built  where  churches 


THE   UNITY  OF   THE  SPIRIT  215 

are    not     needed,    and    localities    where 

churches  are  needed  left  desolate  because 
the  interests  of  the  denomination  are  put 
above  those  of  the  kingdom.  The  mis- 
sionary treasuries  are  empty  and  disgrace- 
fully in  debt.  I  believe  with  proper 
economy  in  the  administration  of  foreign 
and  home  work,  without  regard  to  denomin- 
ation, there  would  be  money  enough.  It  is 
not  the  hard  times  alone  which  have 
emptied  the  treasuries  ;  it  is  the  selfish  way 
in  which  great  trusts  are  administered. 
The  disaster  is  not  less  because  the  selfish- 
ness is  not  intentional.  The  trouble  is 
that  beneath  what  we  call  principle,  in 
many  instances,  is  far  more  of  competition 
than  of  the  spirit  of  Christ. 

In  this  connection  consider  the  debts  of 
the  missionary  societies  as  they  were  but  a 
few  weeks  ago.1  The  Congregational 
Foreign  Board,  8115,000 ;  its  Home  Board, 
177,000;  the  Methodist  Board  for  Home 
and  Foreign  Work,  over  8209,000;  the 
Presbyterian  Boards  for  Home  and  For- 
eign Work,  about  $300,000;  the  Baptist 
Board    for     Home     Missions,     8190,000. 

1  These  figures  are  taken  from  The  Independent  of 
March  5,  1896. 


216  CHURCH   UNITY 

When  the  pressure  of  debt  was  heaviest, 
what  did  our  vaiious  soeieties  do  ?  Instead 
of  getting  together  and  inquiring  how  mis- 
sions as  a  whole  might  be  more  economi- 
cally administered,  they  did  two  things : 
they  reduced  the  salaries  of  the  mission- 
aries and  the  appropriations  for  the  work 
—  already  too  small ;  and  they  increased 
the  number  of  agents  whose  business  it  is 
to  appeal  to  already  overburdened  churches 
for  increased  subscriptions.  There  have 
been  progress  at  home  and  splendid  vic- 
tories abroad,  because  truth  makes  itself 
felt  in  spite  of  the  methods  by  which  its 
interests  are  often  promoted,  but  it  is  time 
that  the  facts  which  thus  far  have  been 
stated  were  faced  and  given  Christian  con- 
sideration. 

The  question  now  arises,  What  shall  be 
done?  It  is  folly  to  describe  symptoms 
unless  remedies  maybe  suggested.  I  am 
addressing  a  theological  seminary,  and  that 
leads  me  to  say  that  the  first  thing  for  a 
Christian  man  to  do  is  to  set  himself  like  a 
flint  against  the  multiplication  or  perpetua- 
tion of  divisions  and  strife.  It  is  not 
within  my  province  at  this  time  to  enter 
more  into  detail.     Fortunately  the  mighty 


THE    UNITY  OF   THE  ST  I  HIT  217 

movement  throughout  the  world  in  behalf 
of  the  unity  of  man  is  making  itself  felt, 
not  only  among  nations,  but  also  among 
denominations,  and  in  that  we  find  the 
best  answer  to  our  inquiry.  As  the  world 
is  becoming  one  the  Church  must  beeome 
one.  The  cry  for  a  united  Church  is  as 
strong  and  persistent  as  that  for  a  united 
world.  It  has  come  none  too  soon.  Against 
heathenism  at  home  and  abroad  the  mo- 
mentum of  spiritual  unity  must  be  hurled. 
Not  more  missionaries,  but  more  force  be- 
hind those  already  in  the  field  !  Not  more 
places  for  preaching,  but  a  mightier  power  j 
behind  those  already  in  the  pulpit !  One  mis- 1 
sionary  may  do  little  ;  a  thousand  in  perfect  I 
harmony  will  not  easily  be  resisted.  "  Ah ! 
but,"  you  say,  "  do  you  plead  for  a  mass  like 
the  Salvation  Army,  in  wdiich  individuali- 
ties are  subject  to  order  and  law  ?  Would 
you  have  the  churches  of  the  world  under 
the  direction  of  one  man  who  should  repre- 
sent Christ  on  the  earth  ?  We  had  better  all 
become  Roman  Catholics  at  once.  It  will 
make  little  difference  who  is  the  Pope." 
Shall  we  have  one  great  Salvation  Army  ? 
No  !  The  more  compact  the  organization 
and  the  more  inflexible  the  rules,  the  surer 


218  CHURCII  UNITY 

will  be  the  tendency  for  individuals  to  fly 
off  on  tangents  of  tlieir  own.  A  Salvation 
Army  for  the  world  under  one  man  might 
work  if  that  man  were  perfect,  but  no  such 
man  is  in  sight,  and  never  has  been.  As 
men  are  now  constituted,  such  unity  is 
neither  possible  nor  desirable.  But  what  i 
shall  we  have  ?  I  plead  not  for  uniformity 
of  organization,  but  for  the  unity^of  the  | 
spirit  —  the  only  unity  possible  for  per- 
sonalities.     What   do   I    mean   by   that? 


Exactly  what  our  Master  meant  when  he 
prayed  for  his  disciples,  "  That  they  all 
may  be  one  ;  as  thou,  Father,  art  in  me, 
and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one 
in  us."  When  all  are  inspired  by  the 
spirit  of  Christ  there  will  be  unity  of  pur- 
pose, unity  of  effort,  and  harmony  of  tem- 
per. As  fast  as  men  are  possessed  by  that 
spirit  difficulties  and  discords  will  disappear. 
Let  me  give  you  a  few  illustrations  of  what 
has  resulted  from  its  absence. 

When  Dr.  Pentecost  went  to  India  in 
1891,  he  saw  that  co-operation  was  indis- 
pensable to  the  success  of  his  mission.  He 
appealed  to  members  of  various  churches, 
among  others  to  priests  of  the  Anglican 
communion  and  to  the  bishop.     In  reply 


\ 


THE    UNITY  OF    THE  SI' I  HIT  21 9 

he  was  told  by  the  latter  that  he  could  not 
be  reeognized  as  a  Christian  preacher  he- 
cause  he  had  not  been  episcopally  ordained. 
When  he  suggested  to  one  of  the  chap- 
lains of  the  bishop  on  a  week  day  that  it 
would  be  his  pleasure  to  attend  the  cathe- 
dral on  Sunday,  and  receive  the  com- 
munion, he  was  told  that  if  he  had  not 
made  his  purpose  known,  stating  that  he 
was  a  Nonconformist,  he  might  have  done 
so,  but  now  that  he  had  made  it  known  it 
was  probable  that  permission  would  be  re- 
fused. The  matter  was  referred  to  the 
bishop,  who  answered  that  while  he  had 
no  objection  to  him  as  a  man,  yet  because 
he  was  an  avowed  Dissenter  he  could 
not  allow  him  to  receive  the  Lord's 
Supper ;  that  it  would  have  been  allowed 
^  if  he  had  not  mentioned  that  he  was  a 
Dissenter  —  although  that  fact  was  well 
known  before.  There  was  the  Christian 
name,  and  but  little  of  the  spirit  of  Christ. 
For  many  years  the  American  Board 
had  had  missions  in  Turkey.  It  had  be- 
come familiar  with  the  peculiarities  of  the 
field,  and  could  work  it  most  efficiently. 
There  came  from  that  country  to  the 
United   States   an  erratic   young   man  of 


220  cnuRcn  unity 

brilliant  ability.  Against  the  advice  of 
missionaries,  he  appealed  to  the  American 
Board  to  help  him  in  Iris  studies,  and  his 
appeal  was  not  granted.  He  then  went  to 
the  Baptists ;  by  them  was  educated ;  by 
them  sent  back  to  Turkey  to  found  Bap- 
tist churches.  He  quickly  ran  his  course 
and  left  the  ministry ;  but  an  element  of 
discord  was  introduced  where  there  ought 
to  have  been  harmony.  The  newspapers 
took  up  the  matter,  and  controversy  fol- 
lowed. Either  the  man  was  unworthy  and 
ought  not  to  have  been  approved  by  either 
society,  and  so  the  Baptists  were  more  anx- 
ious about  denomination  than  about  the 
kingdom;  or  the  Congregationalists  were 
mistaken  and  ought  to  have  encouraged 
the  man  whom  they  refused.  However 
the  blame  may  be  distributed,  there  was 
division,  and  the  work  was  hindered.  There 
was  not  the  unity  of  the  spirit. 

Presbyterian  missionaries  had  long  been 
doing  superb  service  in  Persia.  Elsewhere 
were  territories  untouched  by  the  gospel. 
Why  did  not  the  Society  for  the  Propaga- 
tion of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Lands  seek 
some  unoccupied  field  ?  Instead,  with  ar- 
rogance and  exclusiveness,  their  mission- 


THE   UNITY  OF  THE  SI' f HIT         221 

aries  went  to  Persia,  refused  fellowship  to 
the  men  who  had  opened  it  to  Christianity, 

and  by  their  action  said  thai  those  who  had 
learned  about  Christ  from  Dissenters  were 
as  much  in  need  of  missionaries  as  it'  they 
had  never  heard  of  Him.  Thus  the  Per- 
sians were  taught  a  religion  of  strife.  Such 
assumption  would  make  one's  blood  boil 
were  it  not  at  once  pitiful  and  laughable. 
There  was  little  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  in 
the  councils  of  that  society  when  its  action 
made  that  controversy  possible. 

In  many  of  the  cities  in  unchristian 
lands  where  there  is  an  English-speaking 
population  union  churches  have  been 
formed,  as  in  Honolulu,  Yokohama,  Tokyo, 
and  Kobe.  In  all  cities  that  I  know,  except 
Honolulu,  there  are  barely  people  enough 
to  make  one  small  congregation,  and  in 
Honolulu  only  enough  for  one  fair-sized 
congregation.  Public  services  can  be  main- 
tained only  by  concerted  action  and  mutual 
concession.  But  what  are  the  facts  ?  In 
Honolulu,  first  the  Episcopal  Church  intro- 
duced the  wedge  of  division;  then  the 
Methodists  drove  it  a  little  deeper;  and 
now  certain  Baptists  are  trying  to  in- 
duce the  only  persons  whom  they  recog- 


222  chub  en  unity 

nize  as  having  been  baptized  to  drive  it 
deeper  yet,  and  are  so  blind  that  they  do 
not  seem   to   see   that   the   iron   of    that 
wedge  is  going  straight  into  the  body  of 
Christ.     At   Kobe   the    Union   Church  is 
small,  seating  barely  two  hundred  people, 
and  never  more  than  half  full.      By  an 
amicable    arrangement   one   denomination 
has   used   the   building   one    Sunday  and 
another  the  next,  and  many  persons  have 
attended  both  services.     That  plan  is  now 
disturbed.     Again  the  wedge  of  discord  is 
being  driven  into  the  body  of  Christ    The 
sad  fact  is  that  the  sects  in  those  lands  are 
not  so  many  companies  fighting  a  common 
foe,  but  starving  societies  competing  for  the 
patronage   of    a   few  resident   foreigners, 
while  heathenism  captures  more  than  half 
of  the  young  men  who  go  there  as  Chris- 
tians.    And  yet  missionary  societies  urge 
the  people  at  home  to  give  more  liberally, 
that  the  good  work  of  perpetuating  rival- 
ries may  go  on.    An  eminent  pastor  of  this 
city  recently  went  around  the  world,  and 
returned  with  the  sage  remark,  that  the 
cure  for  the  retrograde  movement  in  the 
Hawaiian  Islands  would  be  the  introduc- 
tion  of   another   denomination.     And  he 


TEE    UNITY  OF   TEE   SPIRIT  223 

lives  to  repeat  his  folly.  I  envy  not  the 
man  who  can  go  into  a  union  church  in  a 
foreign  city  and  raise  a  sectarian  slogan. 
There  is  a  judgment  day  for  such  persons. 
What  is  needed  is  the  spirit  of  Christ  — 
that  is  all. 

Other  illustrations  are  unnecessary.  The 
story  of  Japan,  Uganda,  and  India  is  well 
known.  Despair  of  missions  and  of  Chris- 
tianity would  be  inevitable  were  it  not 
for  the  prophetic  souls  who  behind  abuses 
discern  the  Providence  of  God  making  even 
human  folly  to  praise  him.  But  the  fact 
that  God  overrules  never  justifies  evil  on 
the  part  of  individuals. 

The  foreign  field  is  full  of  discourage- 
ments, inconsistencies,  losses,  scandals,  not 
because  denominations  exist,  but  because 
they  exist  so  largely  for  the  sake  of  them- 
selves. When  there  is  spiritual  unity,  only 
such  denominations  will  enter  foreign  fields 
as  are  needed,  and  conference  and  co-oper- 
ation will  displace  division.  I  admire  the 
enthusiasm  of  "  the  student-volunteers," 
but  about  half  of  their  energy  will  be  lost 
because  the  effect  of  a  blow  is  in  proportion 
as  the  force  behind  it  is  massed.  Send  those 
men  out  to  work  together,  and  the  effect 


224  oilmen  unity 

will  be  sublime  ;  send  them  out  to  be  sacri- 
ficed to  sectarianism,  and  the  spectacle  will 
be  a  shame. 

I  am  not  so  foolish  as  to  think  that  de- 
nominations serve  no  good  purpose.  When 
I  find  one  class  of  people  so  narrow  that 
they  have  no  place  for  men  whose  minds 
are  open  to  receive  the  fullest  light  on  all 
the  problems  of  religion,  I  rejoice  that  they 
can  be  in  a  little  coterie  by  themselves,  and 
hope  they  enjoy  their  company ;  when  I  hear 
others  say  that  they  are  not  willing  to  work 
with  this  evangelist  or  that,  because,  even 
though  the  Lord  approves  him,  they  cannot, 
I  do  not  waste  tears  over  the  fact  that  we 
are  not  compelled  to  keep  step  to  their 
music ;  when  I  find  people  who  do  not  be- 
lieve in  social  settlements,  in  institutional 
churches,  in  saving  men  except  according 
to  prescribed  methods,  —  who,  apparently, 
would  rather  the  masses  were  lost  than 
reached  in  unofficial  ways,  —  I  am  thankful 
that  they  can  have  a  nice  and  proper  fold 
all  to  themselves,  and  I  do  not  care  much 
how  high  they  build  their  fences.  Such 
societies  are  good  places  in  which  to  keep 
and  discipline  those  small  souls  who  do  not 
appreciate  our  Saviour's  intercessory  prayer. 


THE   UNITY  OF  THE  SPIRIT         225 

The  Lord  lias  had  to  endure  many  things 
because  of  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts, 

and  evidently  He  will  yet  have  to  endure 
much  more.  Denominations  in  the  past 
have  served  a  good  purpose,  no  doubt,  and 
cannot  be  dispensed  with  yet ;  hut  they  can 
and  ought  to  be  made  the  agents  of  the 
Spirit  of  God,  rather  than  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  kingdom. 

Before  the  division  in  the  Church  can  be 
expected  to  give  place  to  the  world-embrac- 
ing unity  for  which  we  devoutly  pray,  there 
must  be  harmony  among  denominations. 
The  better  condition  will  follow  the  proper 
use  of  what  we  already  possess.  The  first 
thing  to  seek,  therefore,  is  unity  of  the 
spirit ;  with  that  we  shall  realize  unity  of 
organization  as  soon  as  it  is  desirable.  Con- 
cerning unity  of  the  spirit  I  observe :  — 

I.  It  is  never  the  result  of  mechanical 
contrivance.  All  the  bishops  ever  ordained 
cannot  impart  spirit.  A  million  hands  on 
a  man's  head  may  leave  him  without  the 
unction  from  above.  There  is  only  one 
place  whence  that  can  come,  —  from  the 
Holy  One.  Lambeth  Conferences  and 
General  Assemblies  might  sit  until  the 
Judgment,  and  never  show  His  presence. 
15 


226  CHURCH   UNITY 

We  begin  at  the  wrong  end  when  we  ask, 
How  may  we  make  Christendom  one? 
When  all  who  bear  Christ's  name  have  re- 
ceived the  divine  life  they  will  be  one.  We 
must  stop  asking  how  we  may  have  a  united 
church,  and  humble  ourselves  for  a  baptism 
of  power:  then  the  united  Church  will 
take  care  of  itself. 

I  II.  Until  there  is  unity  of  spirit,  unity  of 
/form  will  be  worse  than  useless.  If  men 
are  not  agreed,  no  good  can  come  from 
'  welding  them  together.  Compel  the  Puri- 
tan to  worship  like  an  Anglican,  and  the 
Anglican  to  worship  like  a  Quaker,  and 
what  will  result?  Make  the  Church  a  i. 
gigantic  organization  with  numberless  bish-  ] 
ops,  one  being  supreme,  whatever  the  name, 
and  there  may  be  one  body,  but  there  will 
be  no  life,  no  divine  fire.  When  there  is 
unity  of  spirit,  unity  of  form  may  be  desir- 
able, and  not  until  then. 

III.  When  there  is  unity  of  spirit,  essen- 
tial unity  of  organization  will  follow  of  \ 
necessity.  Spirit  organizes  its  own  body. 
Our  Republic  is  the  body  which  the  free 
spirit  of  the  American  people  has  organized 
for  itself.  You  may  build  a  box  around 
death,  and  the  box  will  last  until  it,  too, 


TIIE    UNITY  OF   THE  SPIRIT  227 

decays ;  but  if  you  build  anything  around 
life,  it  will  be  broken  in  pieces  by  growth. 
There  is  a  divided  Christendom,  because 
those  called  Christian  arc  without  the  di- 
vine life.  Where  the  spirit  is,  there  will 
be  essential  unity.  Nature  is  the  garment 
of  spirit.  I  love  to  observe  the  variety  of 
manifestation  which  the  spirit  assumes  in 
the  physical  creation, — in  flowers,  in  forests, 
in  grasses,  in  ferns,  in  fishes,  in  birds,  in  all 
the  races  of  man,  in  all  forms  of  matter,  so 
that  there  is  a  veritable  universe.  The 
Church  may  assume  as  many  different 
forms  as  the  creation,  but  with  the  spirit 
indwelling  it  will  always  be  a  universe. 
Let  the  spirit  of  God  organize  its  own 
body. 

IV.  Only  as  there  is  spiritual  unity  can 
the  kingdom  of  God  be  advanced  either  at 
home  or  abroad.  The  kingdom  is  the  form 
which  the  spirit  assumes.  It  was  Jesus 
Christ,  because  the  spirit  was  in  him ;  to- 
day it  is  all  in  whom  the  spirit  dwells. 
What  is  needed  is  that  measure  of  co- 
operation which  shall  prevent  division  of 
energy ;  make  lack  of  comity  impossible  ; 
never  allow  the  building  of  churches,  the 
sending  of    missionaries,  the   spending  of 


228  CHURCH    UNITY 

money  for  sectarian  purposes.  Denomi- 
nations do  not  need  to  go,  if  the  Spirit 
always  controls  ;  and  yet  I  believe  as  we 
now  know  them  they  will  go ;  at  least  there 
will  be  between  them  conference  and  mut- 
ual service,  and  never  rivalry  and  ambition. 
When  will  the  kingdom  come  ?  Not  until 
the  heathen  see  more  of  Christ  and  less  of 
human  mechanisms  ;  and  the  work  at  home 
will  fail  except  all  branches  of  the  Church, 
for  practical  purposes,  are  in  perfect  har- 
mony. Before  that  day  dawns,  what  an 
amount  of  rubbish  must  be  swept  away ! 
What  selfishness  and  conceit  masquerad- 
ing in  garments  of  loyalty  to  conviction 
must  be  unmasked  !  World-wide  move- 
ments require  cosmic  energy,  and  cosmic 
energy  is  the  spirit  which  unifies  and  uses 
nationalities  and  individualities,  rituals 
and  creeds,  for  the  kingdom  of  God. 

V.  But  suppose  we  have  this  spirit,  so 
that  the  prayer  of  Jesus  is  a  reality,  and 
we  are  one  even  as  he  and  the  Father  are 
one  —  what  then  ?  Will  all  be  realized  ? 
By  no  means.  The  kingdom  grows.  The 
way  of  the  spirit  is  the  way  of  life,  and 
that  is  a  mystery.  The  course  which  it 
will  pursue   no   analysis  can  follow;  but 


THE   UNITY  OF  THE  SPIRIT  229 

what  some  of  the  results  will  be  are  not 

difficult  to  determine. 

Where  there  is  unity  of  spirit,  there  will 
be  generous  recognition  of  every  Christian, 
without  regard  to  the  name  he  bears  or  the 
creed  to  which  he  subscribes.  Christianity 
being  a  thing  of  the  spirit  is  discovered  by 
the  spirit.  Those  whom  God  has  approved, 
need  no  certification  of  human  official. 
Heart  answers  to  heart.  Those  who  have 
the  spirit  always  recognize  the  spiritual. 

Where  there  is  unity  of  the  spirit,  there 
will  be  real  fellowship.  Church  buildings 
will  belong  to  the  common  Lord,  and  to  his 
people ;  the  Table  of  the  Lord  will  not  be 
held  to  be  the  property  of  one  sect,  but  the 
ri^ht  of  all  God's  children.  If  an  ecclesi- 
astical  rule  keeps  two  ministers  from  ex- 
changing pulpits,  and  they  have  the  spirit, 
they  will  find  some  way  to  let  the  world 
see  that  rules  can  never  sunder  those  whom 
God  hath  joined  together. 

Where  there  is  unity  of  the  spirit,  there 
will  be  comity  between  denominations  and 
individuals.  No  sect  will  think  of  intrud- 
ing where  it  is  not  needed,  but  each  de- 
nomination will  help  the  one  which  can  do 
the  best  work.     On  the  foreign  field  and  at 


230  cnuRcn  unity 

home  the  inquiry  will  be,  How  may  we 
manifest  to  all,  the  world's  Christ  ?  Where 
the  spirit  dwells,  discords  disappear  and  the 
life  shines  like  the  sun. 

Where  there  is  unity  of  spirit,  there  will 
gradually  grow  something  like  unity  of 
form.  Just  what  that  will  be  we  may  not 
predict,  but  it  will  be  such  a  spiritual  or- 
ganism as  will  allow  the  very  life  of  God, 
as  it  was  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ,  to  reach 
and  influence  all  races  and  all  individuals 
without  hindrance  from  human  selfishness 
or  prejudice.  Enough  for  us  to  know  now 
that  the  unity  of  the  spirit  will  surely  re- 
sult in  a  growing  unity  of  organization  ; 
and  the  more  pervasive  the  spirit,  the  more 
perfect  will  be  the  form. 

The  unity  of  the  spirit  is  a  world-wide 
necessity.  Those  who  exalt  divisions  be- 
little Christ.  He  is  a  sublime  spiritual 
unity ;  the  world  needs  him,  —  not  some 
poor  and  puny  fraction  of  his  glorious 
body  dissevered  by  those  who  do  not  un- 
derstand him.  There  is  money  enough, 
and  there  are  men  enough,  to  send  the 
gospel  into  every  land,  every  home,  every 
heart,  and  there  it  will  be  sent  when  the 
spirit  of  Christ  is  the  inspiration  of  every 


THE    UNITY   OF   THE   XL  HUT  -_:   1 

movement  which  bears  his  name.  What 
our  time  most  needs  is  aot  a  stronger  organ- 
ization, ooreven  simpler  creeds,  but  Chris- 
tian men  who  dare  to  be  true  to  their 
inmost  convictions;  who  arc  not  afraid  to 
fellowship  with  Jesus  Christ  wherever  and 
in  whomever  they  find  him ;  who  will 
have  nothing  to  do  with  traditions  or  rules 
which  interfere  with  the  direct  and  con- 
stant leadership  of  his  spirit,  and  who, 
appreciating  all  that  it  means,  have  said: 
"  I  will  follow  thee  whithersoever  thou 
goest."  Such  men  will  be  misunderstood, 
and  probably  ostracized,  but  in  them  is  the  ? 
kingdom  of  God ;  and  as  their  number  in-  i 
creases,  that  unity  of  the  spirit  which  is  a  J 
world-wide  necessity  will  become  a  reality 
as  silently  and  beautifully  as  the  spring- 
time succeeds  the  winter. 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


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